Inside Amazon (pic heavy)

[TalkingDog]

and a link to Mother Jones: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave

[Blue_Tires]

1. That's that room where the ark of the covenant must be stashed

[Canuckistanian]

7. First thing I thought of, too

Useless junk that will eventually be thrown out, kept in warehouses, tended to by minimum wage slaves.

Is this the "Brave New World" we've been promised?

[SmileyRose]

9. me 3

what we go through keeping our warehouse. That has to be so organized it creates a type of insanity to keep.

[Victor_c3]

14. I actually used to work for Amazon.com a few years back

The is only a cursory organization at Amazon. All of the shelves and bins have bar codes on them. When new items come into the facility, they are loaded onto a cart and someone walks around looking for empty spaces to stash the stuff. They scan the barcode with an RF gun, punch in the number of items stashed there, and move on.

They try to keep similarly sized items together, books in one area, electronic media in another but that is about it. The computer won't let you stash a 40 pound book on the top shelf (i.e that calvin and hobbes complete collection or the Gary Larson "far side" collection) and a couple of things like that, but it is mostly a free-for-all.

When you go to get an item, your RF gun tells you where the item is located. The system actually works really well.

[Initech]

30. I thought the same thing!

[d_b]

2. it's romney's garage

[rurallib]

3. A big K&R

reading about the conditions these people work in is almost unreal. Thanks for pictures.
My guess is these are mostly minimum wage jobs.

[CherokeeDem]

4. Not minimum wage...

In Lexington where Amazon has a huge fulfillment and distribution center, the pay rate runs between 12 and 14 /hr...seasonal, temporary.

However, the working conditions are as bad as reported.

[Victor_c3]

15. The person above me beat me to it.

I used to work in New Castle, DE and the hourly guys were making between $10-$15.

The work isn't easy. The average employee at the facility I used to work at walks approximately 10 miles a day.

[RomneyLies]

5. I'm torn between stopping my online ordering and not stopping it

The conditions are horrid, but the poor people who depend on those jobs makes losing them horrid too.

[JI7]

11. yeah, but maybe if amazon and other big names didn't exist we would have a return of the small shops

and these people can work in those places.

[HiPointDem]

19. online ordering took tax revenue from states; another reason for some state budget crises.

[RomneyLies]

20. I pay state sales tax on all of my online orders.

Illinois forced the issue. Amazon tried to bully the state by saying it would end its relationships with any private businesses doing business out of Illinois and would pull all fulfillment out of Illinois, but never followed through with the threats once the bill passed.

I pay state sales tax on QVC orders, too.

[Historic NY]

6. Whoever sent me my nieces Kindal thanks...

I made sure to make sure everything was placed in one order and one box, it save them extra work. Its hard work in sometimes cold buildings I know I worked in factories.

[high density]

8. Interesting pictures

The article was tl;dr. Temp jobs suck, I think everybody agrees.

[Agschmid]

10. Seems inefficient...

I'd call this a waste of vertical space, but that's just me. Sort of thought it would be amazingly organized clean. Amazing but I feel underwhelmed.

[IDemo]

16. Seems inefficient to me also

Amazon doesn't make any of this stuff. Why don't they drop ship it directly from the manufacturer instead of warehousing it?

[MessiahRp]

23. That's really not an option.

First, most manufacturers want nothing to do with distribution to retail customers. That would be a mess for them to deal with.

Second, not everything in that warehouse is sold by Amazon. Marketplace sellers are encouraged (actively sold) on using Fulfillment by Amazon. FBA asks you to send some or all of your merchandise to them. They will then control the warehousing and shipping of the item. The main reason for this is aside from regular Amazon selling fees (that are between 15-18%) they can dock an additional fee for the service. Then they can use the muscle of their many, many warehouse locations and offer the item as a free ship with any order of $25 or more, or make it available for 2-day shipping to people who pay the premium to use Amazon Prime ($79/yr).

Ultimately this makes more and more of the marketplace accounts have faster shipping at lower pricing models for customers and that has been a major reason why they have whupped Wal-Mart in online sales.

One other thing since I worked directly with Amazon as a large Marketplace partner through my previous employer. They don't just do this out of the goodness of their hearts. They let people sell on Amazon so they can see what does well. Use those direct sales figured and internal stats that they don't even share with the marketplace sellers to determine what they want to get in on and sell themselves. Eventually what they do is buy your bestselling items and undercut you on pricing until they own the majority of sales for that product. OR in the case of specific products where they buy a niche site, like Diapers.com, they block all marketplace competition from selling the same items as them.

Yes they make a TON from marketplace seller fees, but they're also using that data to eventually sabotage that seller's best items and take that market share for themselves.

[RomneyLies]

21. Those are pick bins

The pallet racks will go to the ceiling.

Pick bins must be easily accessible to the pickers.

[dionysus]

24. brings me back to my days as a picker...

[Nye Bevan]

12. Looks a lot nicer than some of the places I have worked in (nt)

[X_Digger]

25. No kidding. I've worked in warehouses a lot less organized and less open. n/t

[Bombero1956]

13. All I can say after reading that article is

I'm truly fortunate to have had a job that didn't have working conditions like those described in that piece. There by the grace of God go I.

[Shankapotomus]

17. Wow, it's hard to believe that place is

home to approximately 427 mammals, 378 reptiles, 428 amphibians, 1,294 birds, 3,000 fish, 40,000 plants and 2.5 million insect species.

[siligut]

26. OK, this is funny

[Shankapotomus]

29. What?

[a kennedy]

18. OMGosh.......

Hard, hard, work. Just Wow.

[snooper2]

22. That's not hard work...

If you are looking at this pile every day- now that's hard work-

[Liberal_in_LA]

27. wow. big place.

[MidwestTransplant]

28. Those workers sure get good exercise there.