A friend send me a picture of an Amazon delivery van the other day. It was a fully branded van with Prime logos, the works. I’ve noticed when my packages get delivered now, they’re usually from delivery guys wearing Amazon vests. All of this lead me to say “that fulfilment centre must be close” only yesterday. Today, it’s been confirmed. Amazon is opening a fulfilment centre in Spring 2022.
Amazon’s New Fulfilment Centre
Many expected, and maybe even hoped, Brexit would impact Amazon’s popularity in Ireland. We’ve been surveying the Irish public about that and it just doesn’t seem to be the case. 40% of people we asked said they had bought from Amazon shortly after Brexit. Amazon has handled the transition well. I’m a Prime customer myself and have to say that when I can’t find something local at a reasonable price, I turn to Jeff and the gang. The deliveries are quick and the customer care is great. I do try and limit my usage given there are some shadowy parts to Amazon’s business, but they’re an undeniably great online store for shoppers.
My point here is that Amazon is a massive retailer operating in Ireland and until now only had a very limited presence with a distribution centre. Today’s news means that Amazon will instead begin storing products in Ireland and shipping directly from this new base. The 630,000 square foot centre will be located at Baldonnell Business Park in Dublin and operations will begin in Spring 2022. The base is expected to 500 new jobs with Amazon specifically pointing out it’ll be a “safe work environment” for “employees to help meet our growing customer demand”.
What Does The New Amazon Fulfilment Centre Mean?
For you, as a shopper, this means faster deliveries. As a Prime customer, I get free next day delivery. However, those packages are shipping from the UK. This simply means my packages take an extra day to get here. The new Amazon Fulfilment centre will likely mean the vast majority of packages bought today, will be delivered next day for Prime customers and generally faster for all customers.
Until now, Amazon has simply routed packages through a distribution centre, but now they will store “millions of items to be picked, packed and shipped to customers across Ireland as well as the rest of Europe”.
It won’t be welcome news for many Irish businesses who are still finding their feet following a pandemic. If Brexit put into consumer confidence shopping when on the Amazon UK website, this will surely resolve the issue for many.
Will There Be An Amazon.ie Now?
It would make sense given Amazon confirmed this new fulfilment centre will be delivering to wider Europe too. Countries like Germany, France and Spain have their own websites so why would Ireland be any different.
There’s the very practical matter of currency involved too.
When shopping on Amazon UK, if you use Amazon’s exchange rate you’ll nearly always pay significantly more. This is because they use an awful exchange rate. The quick solution is Revolut. Simply pay in Sterling and let Revolut do the exchanging for you. I’ve saved a fortune doing this.
If Amazon does start a dot ie website, how will the Euro prices compare to Sterling? There are loads of questions I have like this. And look, maybe Amazon has no plans to open an Irish website at all.
The official line from Amazon is that for now, they are focused on getting this centre up and running. The benefit will be faster delivery times across Ireland along with one-day delivery for hundreds of thousands of items. You’ll still be able to order from beyond the Irish fulfilment centre too.
New Amazon Logistics Centre
Along with the big news today, Amazon also announced that they would be opening a second Amazon Logistics Delivery Station this Autumn in the Northwest Logistics Park at Ballycoolin. This centre will deliver to customers in Dublin and the surrounding areas. The first delivery station in Ireland opened last October in Rathcoole, creating more than 20 permanent jobs and working with 10 independent delivery companies that hired more than 150 drivers.
The new centre will create a further 20 permanent jobs, in addition to dozens of driver opportunities for Amazon Logistics’ delivery service partners and Amazon Flex delivery partners. The 83,500 square foot building is expected to be fully operational this Autumn.
Featured image by Rodrigo Alonso.
