Amazon is officially in peak holiday mode.
The Garner fulfillment center is ramping up from its usual 600,000 packages a day to nearly 800,000. That adds up to more than 26 million packages between now and Christmas.
WRAL’s 5 On Your Side got an inside look at the operation and walked through the process step by step of how an Amazon package magically winds up on your doorstep.
The process begins at the inbound dock, where packages from sellers and manufacturers are delivered. Then, those items go through a five-step process before being shipped to you.
From the inbound dock, received items are then inspected for quality and scanned into the system by employees, such as Pam Stewart.
“It warms my heart knowing we are going to get the gifts out to kids in a timely fashion and making parents happy as well,” she said.
From there, the products are stowed, so they’re ready to purchase. That is where you, the shopper, come in.
Once you hit “buy,” a robot picks the item and sends it to the packing department, where employees pack boxes in seconds.
Then it’s ready for S.L.A.M. or scanning, labeling, applying and manifest.
That’s where each package receives its shipping label and gets loaded onto a truck headed your way.
If you want to know if your order came from Garner, there’s a good chance it did. About 60% of the packages processed here end up in Wake County, with most of the rest going to surrounding counties.
You can tell if yours came from Garner by checking the label: look for “RDU1” on the package.
If you ever wondered how much an Amazon seller makes, independent sellers in North Carolina make, on average, $200,000 in sales each year.
