Amazon announced plans for two more fulfillment centers in the UK this week, which will become its 13th and 14th centers in the country.
A new fulfillment center in Tilbury, Essex, will open in 2017, and will be equipped with advanced Amazon Robotics technology. It will also create more than 1,500 new permanent jobs next year.
Yesterday we wrote about another FC to be opened in Doncaster in 2017, the third in that area.
Amazon said it was increasing the size of its UK fulfillment center network “to meet increasing customer demand, expand its product selection of more than 150 million items and support the needs of a growing number of independent small businesses selling on Amazon Marketplace using Fulfilment by Amazon warehousing and delivery.”
Amazon had this to say about its robotics technology:
“The Tilbury fulfilment centre will be equipped with the latest and most advanced Amazon Robotics technology which launched earlier this year in the UK at Amazon’s fulfilment centres in Dunstable and Doncaster.
“The robots slide under a tower of shelves where products are stowed, lift it and move it through the fulfilment centre. Robots help speed order processing time and reduce walking time by moving the shelves to employees, reducing the time taken to stow items for sale or pick them for new customer orders. They also save space, allowing for 50 per cent more items to be stowed per square foot.”
The company said it currently has ten fulfillment centers in the UK, including two in Doncaster and one each in Dunfermline, Dunstable, Gourock, Hemel Hempstead, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Rugeley and Swansea Bay. In the autumn, two new fulfillment centers will open, in Manchester and Coalville, Leicestershire (the new fulfillment center in Manchester will also use Amazon Robotics technology).
