Walking into New England’s largest Amazon Fulfillment center in Fall River, Massachusetts, can be overwhelming, with packages stacked up all the way to the top of the structure’s 120-foot high ceiling.
“Our racks go all the way to the ceiling. So, two thirds of our employees in this building are up in the air for the majority of their day,” said Katin Miller, General Manager of BOS 7.
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Across the facility’s hallways, powered industrial trucks beep their way through, transporting and stocking packages. Once the cardboard boxes with a smiling arrow reach the conveyer belts for distribution, they move so fast, they seem to fly.
“On a day like today we're shipping, you know, maybe 40 or 50,000 packages. Next week, we'll be shipping more like 100,000 packages a day,” said Miller.
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While Black Friday and Cyber Monday kick off the holiday shopping season, Miller says, they’ve been preparing since January, stocking up on merchandise to the point of exceeding their own storage capacity. According to Miller, BOS 7 reached 101% capacity just before Thanksgiving Day.
“We've been full court press moving now because of supply chain issues. It doesn't mean that nothing is coming in. It’s just certain things are harder to get right now,” said Miller.
According to Miller, consumers can expect their orders to get delivered on time, if the items they order are in stock. That’s in large part because Amazon has been building out their own delivery network in the past year.
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“We have our own sortation buildings. We have our own delivery stations. You see those gray vans in your neighborhoods now. You didn't see those a year ago, right? So by building out our own distribution, our own delivery network, we're able to fulfill customer needs more reliably than we could in the past," Miller said.
If you do see an item that’s in stock now and you want it delivered for the holidays, the advice is to order it sooner, rather than later.
