TAMPA, Fla. — Some big news for avid or even impatient online shoppers in the Tampa Bay area – your Amazon deliveries might get to you even quicker.
A new Amazon facility that opened just weeks ago in Tampa is bringing faster, same-day shipments to more folks across Tampa Bay.
“If you’re in the office and you want...dog food at home by the time you get home, you can pick your delivery window and we’ll have it on your porch at your house before you get home,” said site manager Mike Lawson, who’s been with the company since 2005.
10 Tampa Bay got an exclusive look inside the high-tech facility Tuesday.
From picking, to packing, to delivery – the whole process happens under one roof, using new technology to make it more efficient.
Pickers grab items from robotic sorters that traverse the floor, using lights to guide them to which items to choose. Packers grab the items and put them in a box with a shipping label, sending them down the line.
A robotic arm then affixes a yellow label and sorts it to different zip codes. Those packages then get prepped for delivery, where flex workers (contracted private delivery workers) pick up the packages and bring them to the route for delivery.
This all happens in a matter of minutes.
“The end goal is to bring more product closer to the customer, so we can continue to offer that speedy service and expand the sub-same-day delivery,” Lawson explained.
In conjunction with their facility in Seffner, the new location will allow them to expand their same-day delivery offerings to a bigger area of the Tampa Bay region, further south of St. Petersburg and east through Lakeland.
“It’s going to be able to provide a larger footprint to cover all of the Tampa metro area,” Lawson added.
It’s here in Tampa where they are setting the standard, technology-wise for the company moving forward. The facility will hold upwards of 2,000,000 unique items from electronics to household goods.