How Amazon Delivers Packages in Less Than an Hour
How Amazon Delivers Packages in Less Than an Hour
![](file:///C:\Users\Ken\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image002.jpg)
Amazon Prime employee Alicia Jackson hunts for items at
the company's urban fulfillment facility that have been ordered by customers on
Dec. 22, 2015, in New York. Mark Lennihan—AP
By LISA EADICICCO December 22, 2015
At first, walking into Amazon’s new midtown Manhattan
building feels just like entering any slick corporate office in the
neighborhood. But pass the glowing marble-lined lobby and take the elevator to
the fifth floor, and you suddenly find yourself surrounded by a bustling
warehouse.
This facility is Amazon’s secret weapon that makes it
possible to deliver packages in as quickly as an hour to locations in
Manhattan, certain areas of Brooklyn, and Long Island City in Queens. New York
is one of 20 cities across the U.S. where Amazon Prime Now, the company’s
ultrafast delivery service, is available. Amazon customers who pay $99 a year
for a Prime account can shop for anything from Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to
last-minute Christmas gifts with near-instant delivery. The company even plans
to play Santa Claus this holiday season, delivering packages just before
midnight on Christmas Eve. This is especially important as Amazon gears up for
what may be its biggest holiday season ever, as it’s expecting sales to grow
between 14% and 25% compared to Q4 2014.
Employees responsible for picking items from Amazon's
warehouse shelves to compile an order are called "pickers."
Since customers can opt to get items delivered as quick
as an hour, Amazon Prime Now sells frozen foods, ice cream, and other
groceries.
Once all of the items in the order are packaged,
employees label them to prepare them for delivery.
The orders are then placed on racks when they're ready to
be handed off to Amazon's couriers.
Each rack is designated for packages to be delivered in
different New York City neighborhoods, such as the Lower East Side or Long
Island City.
Prime Now orders are then taken down to the building's
main floor through a specific entrance designated for Prime Now deliveries.
Amazon's couriers deliver the packages by foot, subway,
or car depending on which mode of transportation is the fastest.
It’s borderline unbelievable that Amazon employees can
find what they’re looking for in this 40,000 square foot storehouse, even
though it’s a fraction of the size of the company’s 1.2 million square foot
Phoenix facility. Bottles of Gatorade are stocked right next to children’s
books, granola bars share a shelf with tech gadgets. It’s like looking at a
foreign language that shares English’s Latin alphabet: The ingredients are
familiar, their arrangement is not.
“To the untrained eye it may look random,” says Stephenie
Landry, Amazon’s worldwide director of Prime Now. Yet Amazon’s “pickers,”
employees who locate and package items for each order, move decisively and
swiftly as they work. Their pace quickens still at the sound of a gong, the
starting gun in the race to complete a one-hour delivery.
It’s tempting to think of the pickers as similar to New
York City’s veteran cabbies, all with maps of their territories seemingly baked
into their brains. But like many of today’s taxi drivers, their hunt is aided
by technology. “We have high-tech algorithms that we have taken from our normal
fulfillment centers, and we use them in this smaller building,” says Landry.
“It takes the picker on the fastest path possible to grab all of the items.”
This combination of human dexterity and technology makes
it possible for Amazon to get items out the door almost immediately after an
order is placed. Speed is particularly essential for one-hour deliveries, as
most of the 60-minute window may be needed for travel — especially here in New
York, with its unpredictable traffic and public transportation jams.
“Where we gain the efficiency is actually getting the
stuff really quick,” says Landry. “So we don’t need to spend time worrying
about how to arrange [items]; we spend time worrying about how to get it in a
bag really fast and out to customers.”
Once the items are packed and ready to be delivered,
they’re handed off to couriers for delivery. These couriers are a mix of
Amazon’s own employees as well as professional delivery services that Amazon
has partnered with. The courier’s job is to get the order to the recipient as
quickly as possible, especially if it’s a one-hour delivery. This means
couriers will often deliver packages by foot, bicycle, public transportation,
or car depending on which mode of transportation is the fastest.
Only a fraction of the items Amazon sells are stored at
its smaller facilities. Typically, the New York location is full of household
products like groceries as well as seasonal items. In the winter, for instance,
you’re more likely to find shovels and ice scrapers on the shelves. That will
change in the spring, when customers are looking for garden hoses and leaf
blowers. One new addition: Various types of alcohol, ready for one-hour
delivery throughout Manhattan.
“The things that are ordered in general for ultrafast
[delivery], whether that be one hour or two hours, are things that people don’t
associate with Amazon today,” says Landry. “The things we choose to sell are
changing all the time.”
While Amazon dominates the online retail space, its
on-demand delivery service has plenty of competition from a host of startups.
Postmates promises deliveries in under an hour from a wide range of stores in
more than 100 cities around the country. Car-hailing service Uber is dipping
its toes into the delivery pool with UberRush, a similar service. Instacart is
another startup that allows customers to schedule a grocery delivery in as
quickly as an hour.
For its part, Amazon says it’s staying focused on the
future. The company is eyeing even quicker delivers made possible by
package-hauling drone aircraft, despite logistical and regulatory challenges.
Through Prime Air, Amazon hopes to get orders from warehouse to recipient in 30
minutes or less.
“Ten years ago people thought two-day shipping seemed
really fast,” Landry said. “We think two-hour shipping and one-hour shipping
will be the standard.”
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