What is the difference between an order picker and a reach truck?

An order picker lifts the operator up with the load to pick individual cartons or items directly off a shelf. A reach truck keeps the operator at ground level and moves whole pallets. They solve different problems and are not interchangeable.

Do order pickers need a different licence to other forklifts?

Yes. Order-picking trucks sit under the LO licence class, separate from the LF class that covers most other forklifts — see the forklift licence guide for how the two classes are structured.

What racking type pairs best with an order picker?

It depends on the pick profile rather than the truck. High-turnover carton picking often pairs with gravity-fed carton flow systems; standard beam-level picking works fine on ordinary selective racking.

Can an order picker also move full pallets?

Not efficiently. It is built for elevated piece-picking, not pallet handling, and using one as a general-purpose pallet truck usually means the wrong machine for the job.

Order Pickers: Picking Cartons at Height, Not Moving Pallets

An order picker lifts the operator up with the load, so cartons and individual items can be picked directly off a shelf or beam level at height. It solves a different problem to every other truck class in this silo, which move whole pallets rather than pieces of one.

Last updated 2026-08-23

A different job entirely

Every other truck covered in this silo moves whole pallets from one point to another. An order picker exists because a lot of warehouse work is not that: it is pulling three cartons for one order off a shelf that happens to be four metres up. The operator rides a platform up with the forks, works at the pick face directly, then rides back down.

That distinction matters because buying or hiring an order picker to move pallets, or a reach truck to pick cartons, both waste the strengths of the wrong machine.

Where it fits in the layout

Order pickers are built around slotting and pick-face decisions — which items sit at reachable height, in what sequence, for which order profile. Where those pick faces sit relative to each other drives pick-path optimisation far more than it drives truck selection, but the truck has to suit the beam levels the operator is expected to reach.

Clear height and beam-level planning has to account for an order picker reaching a genuinely working height safely, not just a maximum lift figure on a spec sheet, and carton flow racking is a common pairing where high pick-face turnover justifies gravity-fed replenishment behind the picker.

Low-level and high-level order pickers

Low-level order pickers keep the operator close to the ground for pick-face work on the lower levels of a run, useful for high-frequency, low-height picking where riding up and down repeatedly would slow the job down. High-level order pickers lift the operator to the working height itself, which is the truck most people picture for pallet racking pick faces several levels up, and are the ones actually built to reach a genuine warehouse pick face rather than just the bottom of the run.

The right choice depends on where the pick faces actually sit in your layout, not on which one seems more capable on paper. A site running both low and high pick faces sometimes needs both truck types rather than trying to make one do both jobs.

Working at height changes the safety picture

Because the operator is elevated with the load rather than staying at ground level, order-picker work interacts directly with pedestrian movement below and around the truck. Pedestrian and forklift separation matters as much for an order picker aisle as for any ground-level forklift route, arguably more, given the operator has reduced visibility of the floor beneath them and cannot simply step down to check.

It also means an order picker aisle deserves the same seriousness in day-to-day operation as any pallet-handling aisle, even though nothing about picking cartons feels as dramatic as moving a loaded pallet at height.

Licensing

Order pickers sit under their own licence class in Australia, separate from the general forklift licence — see the licensing rules covering forklift operation for the LO order-picking truck class and how it differs from the LF forklift class that covers counterbalance, reach and VNA trucks.

Common questions

What is the difference between an order picker and a reach truck?: An order picker lifts the operator up with the load to pick individual cartons or items directly off a shelf. A reach truck keeps the operator at ground level and moves whole pallets. They solve different problems and are not interchangeable.
Do order pickers need a different licence to other forklifts?: Yes. Order-picking trucks sit under the LO licence class, separate from the LF class that covers most other forklifts — see the forklift licence guide for how the two classes are structured.
What racking type pairs best with an order picker?: It depends on the pick profile rather than the truck. High-turnover carton picking often pairs with gravity-fed carton flow systems; standard beam-level picking works fine on ordinary selective racking.
Can an order picker also move full pallets?: Not efficiently. It is built for elevated piece-picking, not pallet handling, and using one as a general-purpose pallet truck usually means the wrong machine for the job.

Part of our guide to forklift types and selection.