If you’ve ever wanted to see the magic that happens after you click ‘buy’ on Amazon or what happens once you ship your stock into an FBA warehouse, you can tour an Amazon fulfilment centre and seeing first-hand how it all works.
If you’ve never visited an enterprise level warehouse it’s a revelation – the sheer size of the warehouse is hard to grasp once inside, even from the elevate walkways you’ll only get to see small football sized field sections at a time, but as you pull into the car park you’ll see the vast size of the buildings.
When you tour an Amazon fulfilment centre it’ll start with a talk and then Amazon workers will guide you through the warehouse and there’s generally plenty of them with each tour group to answer questions. Hundreds of people work in each warehouse, but so cavernous are the spaces that the sometimes feel slightly deserted as if nothing is happening.
If you visit certain warehouse such as Dunstable, Doncaster or Tilbury you’ll also get to see Amazon’s army of Kiva robots collecting shelves of goods and moving them around so that products held on them can be picked, packed and shipped.
Tours are fascinating and totally free apart from your transport to and from your chosen location. As well as being interesting you’ll learn a ton of random Amazon trivia – for instance did you know that Amazon warehouses are named after their nearest local airport code?
You can book an Amazon Tour at any of seven (soon to be eight) locations and there are dates available every week day from the 18th to 29th of March. You’ll need to book online to tour an Amazon fulfilment centre and the locations which host visitors are listed below.
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Doncaster, England (LBA2) Plot IP1, iPort Avenue New Rossington, Doncaster DN11 0BG |
Dunfermline, Scotland (EDI4) Amazon Way, Dunfermline KY11 8ST |
Dunstable, England (LTN4) Boscombe Road, Dunstable LU5 4RW |
Manchester, England (MAN1) 6 Sunbank Lane, Airport City Altringham, Manchester WA15 0QA |
Peterborough, England (EUK5) Unit 1, Kingston Park Flaxley Road, Peterborough PE2 9EN |
Rugeley, England (BHX1) Towers Business Park Power Station Road, Rugeley WS15 1LX |
Tilbury, England (LCY2) London Distribution Park Windrush Road, Tilbury RM18 7AN |
Coventry, England (BHX4) – coming soon 1 Lyons Park 9DQ Sayer Drive, Allesley, Coventry CV5 9FA |