Amazon Delivery
Amazon has been a lifesaver for so many people. Thanks to Amazon Prime, members can get a vast majority of their orders in two days. What’s more, your shipping is free. While there is an annual membership fee, the money you save on shipping alone is often enough to justify the cost. Getting your order in just a couple of days makes the deal even sweeter.
The question many people have, however, is how in the world does Amazon get their orders out so quickly and delivered in the two-day timeframe? With over 100 million Prime members, it’s a good question. People order things every day (sometimes several things, or sometimes several times a day). Here’s how the company makes it possible.
Amazon Fulfillment Centers
All Amazon products start in one of the company’s many fulfillment centers, which are located around the country. Products come into the centers, traveling around on conveyor belts. There is no real organizational system inside; products get stored wherever they’ll fit since they generally won’t be there for long.
When you place an order, workers start grabbing the items off of the shelves, placing them into crates. Once everything is picked, the order travels to a real person who boxes it up. Amazon has a computer system that lets workers know how big everything is and what size box they should use.
After packing everything up, the worker places a barcode on the box, and your package continues on its way. It gets weighed to ensure your order is correct. If something’s wrong, it gets pushed aside to get reviewed by another worker. Finally, it continues along the conveyor belt to get loaded into one of Amazon’s many delivery trucks.
Delivery by Truck
Packing boxes onto Amazon trucks is the equivalent of playing real-life Tetris. Workers attempt to fit as many boxes as possible into each trailer to ensure that as many orders as possible go out at once. Many carry up to 2,000 boxes or more. The trucks take the packages to sortation centers, where they get sorted based on location and delivery speed. From these centers, the boxes go to new trucks, airports, and carrier services such as UPS, FedEx, and USPS.
Delivery by Plane
Sometimes, packages need to travel by plane. Amazon Air planes depart from 20 airports across the country. Whether they need to get to the other side of the country or to one of the more than 100 countries the company delivers to, the planes help to ensure speedy delivery. The packages get fit into Unit Load Devices, which hold hundreds of boxes each. Every plane carries up to 30 of these containers. Once loaded, the planes head off to their destinations. The loading process takes a few hours, but the company has it down to a science.
Amazon Delivery Service Partners
With more and more people signing up for Amazon Prime memberships, the company has started recruiting delivery service partners to continue to ensure timely deliveries. These partners often have fleets of up to 40 vehicles and up to 100 employees or more. Amazon provides toolkits and training, and the delivery partners do the rest. Many partners use delivery routing software, which allows them to plan the most effective routes possible for their drivers. Not only does this help to make sure packages get to their destinations on time, but it also saves the company time and money.
Amazon also hires independent contractors through its Amazon Flex program. With this delivery method, individuals use their own vehicles to deliver packages on their own schedules. It provides greater convenience for people who want to earn extra money, but don’t want to work a set schedule every day.
There you have it – from Amazon’s fulfillment centers to your front door in only two days. The company developed a system that works for them and enables them to provide you with your order quickly, which has made millions of lives much, much easier.
