Amazon's new weapon to win online shopping war Down Under
One of the world's most powerful companies, founded by one of the planet's richest men, is about to boost the size of its footprint in Australia.
Amazon's sprawling new sort centre in Melbourne is almost finished, with the online behemoth claiming the facility will speed up delivery to its customers and be open in time for the festive season.
The giant building, which occupies a 5600sqm site, around the size of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, is the US company's first dedicated sort centre in Australia.
Watch a time-lapse of the massive Amazon centre being built in the player above
The site of Amazon Australia's sort centre in Craigieburn, Melbourne. Supplied
Huge steel frames are erected at the Amazon site in Melbourne. Supplied
Amazon sort centres are where already-picked-and-packed customer orders are further sorted by final destination, and shipped to last mile sites for delivery to customers.
Now valued at more than $1 trillion, the company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos is tooling up to dominate the growing online shopping market in Australia.
More than 80 per cent of Australians shopped online last year, spending a record $62.3 billion.
Pandemic lockdowns saw more and more people move their shopping habits online
Creating vast and efficient urban logistics networks is critical for retailers wanting to rule this space.
Supermarkets Coles and Woolworths are both investing heavily in this area and building massive new automated warehouses which will be powered by robots.
Consultant Brittain Ladd, a former Amazon executive, said high-tech warehouses are key retail battlegrounds of the future.
"We are about to witness the largest disruption of retail and the supply chain that we've ever encountered ... and it's going to be driven by technology," Ladd told the JLL podcast.
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An architectural rendering of what the completed Amazon sort centre will look like Supplied
The centre will feature the largest solar panel system at an Amazon site in Australia Supplied
Amazon says its new sort centre will speed up delivery over the 'final mile' Supplied
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Amazon told 9news.com.au in a statement the centre would create around 200 jobs.
The company is also wanting to hire 2000 workers for the Christmas shopping rush.
In recent years US regulators have scrutinised Amazon over employment and working conditions.
Workers at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, made history earlier this year when they voted to form the company's first US labour union.
Amazon warehouse work can be incredibly demanding.
One Amazon worker described the job as "an intense workout every day" in testimony before members of the US Senate last year.
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