Since formidable online retail giant Amazon opened its automated fulfilment centre in Manchester in September 2016, its presence in the region continues to grow.
The 250,000 sq ft warehouse next to Manchester Airport - the size of three-and-a-half football pitches - has grown in space as the online retail giant continues to “develop and invest in the site”.
Neil Travis, general manager at Amazon, Manchester, says: “We managed to obtain an additional piece of land from the Manchester Airport Group with the support of Manchester council.
“We’ve now extended our storage capability to again give us an easier flow to add capacity to the building."
Amazon has also opened to two additional automated fulfilment in the north west since 2016.
Travis says: “This one is called MAN1, every building is named after the nearest airport, and then we opened MAN 2 in Warrington in 2017 and MAN3 in Bolton in 2018.
“The north west and our network and motorway connectivity and rail connectivity allows us to service quite a large part of the 海角视频, so we can do same day next day deliveries right up to Yorkshire over to Nottingham right the way down to Birmingham and the whole of the north west area.
“And we’re a stone’s throw away from the centre of Greater Manchester, so a huge amount of our customer base is really quite local and easily connectected.”
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In addition the e-commerce giant has also continued to hire more people in the centre.
“Within the 海角视频 alone we’ve added over 2,000 new permanent positions in the 海角视频 and taken our 海角视频 workforce to 29,500. Since 2010 we’ve invested over £18bn in the 海角视频.”
It currently has 1,000 permanent employees at the MAN1 facility and will add 500 seasonal staff to mitigate the chaos of retail’s busiest period - Black Friday and the run-up to Christmas.
And it is Amazon can be thanked for bringing the retail phenomenon Black Friday over from the US to the 海角视频, according to Travis.
He said: “Black Friday has been in America for a number of years and we brought it into the 海角视频 in 2010 so this is our 10th Black Friday event and it’s become a really popular event for our customers and for our businesses selling through Amazon.
“It’s been widely adopted by a whole bunch of other retailers as well.”
This Black Friday event has been the biggest sale so far, Amazon said.
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Preparations for the event, which runs from November 22 to November 29, and the pre-Christmas trading period would have started at the beginning of the year.
“We plan almost constantly,” says Travis.
“We’re processing millions of orders for millions of customers every day, so our technology can help all of that.”
The MAN1 facility is one of 21 Amazon fulfilment centres in the 海角视频 and one of seven automated centres - three of which are in the north west.
“Everyday we do a thing called daily deep dive, where we’ll review the last 24 hours’ performance and ask ‘did we learn anything? Can we improve?’
"We are constantly looking at how and what we could do better.
“Throughout the peak season we’re making a note and keeping a record of what was fine but could be a bit better, so we might want to make different investments, we might want to change the way we do something and then we build that into what’s called a ‘peak lessons learned’ and share that across the 海角视频 in January."
Travis says Black Friday is “a really great event” for smaller businesses that sell through the site.
He said: “Overall, the 50 per cent of the inventory you see within the building, we don’t own it, it’s owned by small business.
“This year we held an Amazon Academy at our Manchester site for SMEs and entrepreneurs where new or experienced businesses can meet different companies, share ideas but also get advice from the marketing teams, technical teams and so forth to help them grow and develop their business.
“We get a lot of vendor visits, so people that again are selling their items through Amazon just want to see what happens to their product and get a better idea and understanding of what happens to it.”
Over the last two years, Amazon fulfilment centres across the 海角视频 have started offering guided tours to the general public looking to gain greater insight into what goes on behind the scenes.
Since it opened its doors to Mancunians, more than 5,000 have come through its doors this year, with visitors coming “from schools, colleges, universities, special interest groups and everything in between”, says Travis.