Just how do they deliver all kinds of products so fast? They can't have absolutely everything in one warehouse ready to deliver at a moments notice? These were just a few of the questions we had when we were invited for a tour of Amazon's fulfilment centre next to Manchester Airport this week.
Many of us will have been logging onto Amazon's website the last few weeks for Black Friday bargains or early Christmas presents, or will have at least seen the iconic cardboard boxes at front doors or on postage boxes. But just how do they do it?
At the MAN1 fulfilment centre there are four floors packed with hundreds of workers each stocking 'shelves' and packing boxes and a mind-blowing amount of robots making it all tick. There are more than three miles of conveyor belts carrying a multitude of different products around the vast warehouse on the journey before you even click buy to the trucks to your door.
The name itself, MAN1, refers to the closest international airport being Manchester Airport and there is a MAN2 and MAN3, in Warrington and Bolton. To give a sense of scale, the Altrincham warehouse next to Wilmslow Road is the size of three-and-a-half football pitches with our tour of just one floor taking well over an hour.
There are more than 1,000 permanent staff on various jobs with 2,000 robots constantly moving around, picking up some 20,000 shelving unit 'pods' filled with a random array of products, ready to be 'picked' for packing and delivery out of the site. There are millions of products in the warehouse at any one time - from nappies, toys, coffee beans, books, and more - with hundreds of thousands of packages delivered daily.
It's all about speed, with randomly shelved products constantly moving around so as soon as someone clicks 'buy' it can be taken out and shipped within hours. The technology behind it all is impossible to comprehend in person, but it all works to offer the rapid delivery we've all become used to.
The journey of a package begins before you've even come close to clicking buy. New products are coming into the centre all of the time, waiting to be ordered. Millions are held at the centre at any one time, with up to half from independent small and medium businesses.
And if they don't happen to have the product you want at your closest centre, it will be delivered from one somewhere else in the country where they do have it within hours so it can be at your door as soon as possible.
The layers and layers of technology and AI on site constantly know where each product is. Once you click buy one of the robots roaming around the warehouse floor picks up a shelving unit with the product on, taking it to one of the pickers as quick as it can.
It is picked and then placed into the right box, before being put onto a conveyor belt around to one of the packers who's told what size box to put it in - and even has the right amount of tape cut by a robot to seal the box. It is then placed back on the conveyor where the box is scanned before immediately the right label is printed onto the box.
So, within seconds, this box is weighed and the correct label is printed and placed on the package. If something doesn't match up, the box is pushed off the belt and doubled checked to make sure everything is as it should be.
The package is then taken downstairs, put into a crate for the right location, and leaves the building. From here the parcels will go to an Amazon sort centre or carrier facility such as DPD or Royal Mail and then out for delivery to customers, all within a matter of hours.
It all has to be seen to quite be believed. It's the second time I've been around one of these warehouses but I still couldn't comprehend just how much technology and AI must go into all this. It's quite hypnotic watching the robots carrying the shelves with random products around, but it all serves a purpose. It gets whatever you want to you at famous speed.
For more of today's top stories click here.
READ NEXT:
Manchester restaurant Another Hand named in Michelin Guide just eight months after opening
Manchester to host first ever Christmas parade through city streets
Review and pictures: Westlife have the wow factor at Manchester AO Aren
Liam Gallagher exhibition opens next to Manchester Christmas Markets and it's free to enter
