Amazon is omnipresent.
The Seattle-based company’s announcement to acquire Whole Foods Market for $8.7 billion whipped people into a frenzy trying to figure out what it will mean to consumers and the retail industry.
Less splashy news is the company’s plans to build a 885,000-square-foot fulfillment center at the Miami-Dade County-owned Carrie Meek International Business Park at the Opa-Locka airport. The new facility will bring 1,000 full-time jobs to South Florida.
The center, to be completed in 2018, joins a sorting facility and Prime Now hub operating west of Doral. It will be the company’s 10th fulfillment center in Florida, and Amazon is raking in tens of millions in tax breaks to build its network of distribution warehouses in its quest for total retail domination.
The “highly technological” facility, as described in the news release, will stock millions of items and use Amazon robotics to assist workers in getting goods quickly delivered. No word when Skynet will become self-aware.
The company already offers two-hour Prime Now and Amazon Fresh grocery delivery to select ZIP codes in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, so I immediately began having visions of Prime Air drones dropping 48-packs of toilet paper at my door.
I asked Amazon spokeswoman Shevaun Brown what this new facility means to South Florida shoppers.
Q. The new facility sounds pretty high-tech. Are these robots like little Terminators?
A. That’s funny! No, the robots we use help employees pick, pack and ship customer orders and to reach to products in high, hard-to-reach areas. It’s an exciting technology that helps us fulfill orders such as books, electronics and toys. This fulfillment center allows us to get closer to customers to offer faster shipping.
Q. Does this mean you will be expanding Amazon Fresh grocery delivery and Prime Now delivery in Broward and Palm Beach counties?
A. No, this is a separate facility from the ones that handle Prime Now and Prime Fresh orders. This new facility will handle traditional Amazon.com orders. Since the site is not online yet, it’s hard to say if same-day delivery will be expanded. But things change quickly at Amazon.
So much for the drones. As you can see, Amazon is tight-lipped about its plans. Brown pretty much stuck to the script in Amazon’s press release, talking up the new jobs and how that would allow the company to give back to the community. She declined to discuss the Whole Foods acquisition, announced on June 16. Amazon hasn’t shared its vision for the organic grocery chain, and the deal will require regulatory approval. Antitrust concerns are being raised about the sale. Now, it appears Wal-Mart, Amazon’s biggest competitor, may make a bid for the grocer, which is driving up Whole Foods stock.
Shoppers are dying to know what Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has in store (no pun intended). In 1982, when Bezos was the valedictorian at Miami’s Palmetto Senior High, he said he wanted to build space hotels, amusement parks, yachts and colonies for millions of people orbiting around the earth.
Figuring out how to control the global marketplace and disrupt traditional retail business models seems a much easier task than building hotels and yachts (what?) in space.
Bezos knows that customers who don’t trust Amazon to pick their melons and veggies for delivery will likely visit the company’s brick-and-mortar stores, whether they’re called Whole Foods or not. Perhaps they’ll walk out with perishable goods, and stuff like water, cereal and Kindles will be delivered by flying unmanned vehicles.
On Thursday, the company applied for a U.S. patent application for a “multi-level fulfillment center for unmanned aerial vehicles” to be used in “densely populated areas.” Drawings, one of which resembles a beehive, shows a tall, cylindrical building filled with drones. (Remember when you heard about that and thought, “No way. That’s insane!”)
In yet another blow to traditional retailers like Macy’s and Sear’s, Amazon is testing Prime Wardrobe, which lets members order three to 15 garments, accessories and shoes for free. Fashionistas try on the goods, and will be charged for what they keep. It’s free to ship back unwanted goods, of course.
On the grocery front, we may not know how a reimagined Whole Foods store will fit into our lives, but it will. One thing we do know is the company’s endgame is total retail domination on Earth in ways we can’t even imagine.
Maybe sailing yachts in space isn’t so crazy.
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