Amazon is growing its UK fulfilment centre network as it expands to meet customer demand, increases its product selection and supports more third party Marketplace sellers with Fulfilment by Amazon.
The fulfilment centre will be Amazon’s 13th in the UK and will be equipped with advanced Amazon Robotics technology.
Amazon says its new fulfilment centre in Tilbury, Essex, will open in 2017, and create more than 1,500 new permanent jobs for humans next year. This is in addition to the 3,500 other humans the company already employs in the UK. The new centre will also be filled with autonomous logistics robots.
Amazon says it is increasing the size of its UK fulfilment centre network to meet increasing customer demand, expand its product selection of more than 150 million items and support the needs of a growing number of independent small businesses selling on Amazon Marketplace using Fulfilment by Amazon warehousing and delivery.
John Tagawa, Amazon’s vice president of UK operations, says: “We are excited to announce that we will be opening our 13th fulfilment centre in the UK in Tilbury in spring 2017 to enable us to continue to expand our product selection, support more third-party sellers including small businesses with our fulfilment expertise and meet growing customer demand in the UK.
“We are delighted to be creating more than 1,500 new permanent full-time jobs with competitive wages and comprehensive benefits starting on day one.”
The new Tilbury fulfilment centre will be equipped with the latest and most advanced Amazon Robotics technology which launched earlier this year in the UK at Amazon’s fulfilment centres in Dunstable and Doncaster.
The robots slide under a tower of shelves where products are stowed, lift it and move it through the fulfilment centre. Robots help speed order processing time and reduce walking time by moving the shelves to employees, reducing the time taken to stow items for sale or pick them for new customer orders. They also save space, allowing for 50 per cent more items to be stowed per square foot.
John Tagawa says: “The Amazon teams are dedicated to innovating in our fulfilment centres to increase speed of delivery while enabling greater selection at lower costs for our customers. The introduction of Amazon Robotics is the newest example of our commitment to invention in logistics on behalf of our employees and our customers.”
