Retail giant Amazon has more than doubled its workforce at its Staffordshire fulfilment centre to meet demand from Black Friday to Christmas.
Bosses at the Rugeley warehouse started preparing for their busiest time of year back in September, when an extra 1,300 temporary workers were recruited to take it into 2020.
Gary Norton, general manager at Amazon's Rugeley fulfilment centre, said: "Our preparations started about eight weeks ago with the recruitment process and staff training.
"On a day-to-day basis we have 1,000 staff here at Rugeley but the number of people we need more than doubles at peak times – which is our ‘Prime week’ in July and then from Black Friday to Christmas. This year we have taken on 1,300 temp staff to cope with demand.
"We operate 24/7 across two 10-and-a-half-hour shifts – a day and a night shift. The primary aim of every member of our staff is to get the orders to our customers as fast as we can."
The 750,000 square-foot BHX1 warehouse - which opened in 2011 on the site of the former Lea Hall Colliery - and is one of 21 fulfilment centres across the 海角视频 including those in Coalville, Coventry and Chesterfield.
It houses everything from jewellery, mobile phones and video games to alcohol, coffee machines and children's toys.
Each day 'hundreds of thousands' of products are shipped out from the four-storey warehouse to customers across the 海角视频 and Europe.
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Gary, who joined Amazon from Rolls Royce in 2015, added: "Looking around the facility is fascinating because you find some of the most random things you can think of.
"I have been here for almost five years and it still surprises me to this day what people will sell – and more to the point what people will buy!
"We hold a random mix of products here, and we can do that because the technology we use is very clever. At any one time our computer systems know where each and every product is. If it is in here, we can find it."
Currently more than 250 million items are listed on Amazon from retails as big as Lego to small, independent businesses selling handmade products.
More than 50 per cent of the products on the Amazon website are not owned by the company, instead they fulfil the orders - from picking, packing and shipping - on behalf of other retailers.
Gary added: "The growth of Amazon in the 海角视频 and across the world has been phenomenal.
“We have just grown and grown and in the past four years we have opened 13 new fulfilment centres across the country. The investment in infrastructure reflects the growth in online shopping and customer demand.
"Amazon started off as a book store which operated from our founder Jeff Bezos’ garage. So to be at this point in just 25 years is incredibly impressive.”