Amazon to open fulfilment centre in Sydney

Amazon is set to open its second Australian fulfilment centre, or distribution warehouse, in the coming months, today announcing its leasing of a 43,000 square metre facility in Moorebank, in Sydney’s south west.

The company’s first fulfilment centre is a 24,000 square metre facility in Melbourne’s Dandenong South, launched a few months ahead of retail offering early last December.

Robert Bruce, Amazon Australia operations director, said the facility will allow the company to build on the capabilities of its first centre in Dandenong South and “continue to fulfil our commitment to fast and reliable deliveries for Australian customers”.

“Sydney represents another important development for our growth strategy in Australia, following a steady and progressive increase in customer demand,” he said.

“This investment will benefit both customers and the local economy by generating new jobs and providing small and medium sized Australian businesses who sell on amazon.com.au and use our Fulfilment by Amazon program, with an opportunity to more easily access millions of customers across the country.”

The company plans to start operations in its Sydney centre in the second half of the year, in time for the expected rollout of Amazon’s Prime service down under.

It follows the February launch of Amazon’s Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) service in Australia in February.

Businesses signed up to use FBA are able to ship their products directly to customers via Amazon’s local fulfilment centres, with Amazon picking, packing and shipping customers’ orders directly.

While the launch of the company’s retail offering in Australia perhaps didn’t deliver on all the hype in terms of product range and price, according to statistics from Nielsen, the Australian Financial Review reported in January, around 3.8 million Australians accessed amazon.com.au in December, up 80.9 percent on the 2.1 million users seen in November.

Estimates from Statista predict Amazon Australia sales will grow to 4.2 billion by 2021.

Image: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Source: geekwire.