OPA-LOCKA, Fla. – The Amazon Fulfillment center in Opa-locka is busy filling thousands of Cyber Monday orders.
“You’re seeing all the hustle and bustle this Cyber Monday,” said Owen Torres, Amazon spokesperson.
The big sales have led to busy workers inside the center in Opa-locka on Monday.
“We’re prepping up for Cyber Monday, or the holiday season, early on in this year. We’ve actually hired more than 2000 seasonal employees here just in South Florida alone,” said Torres.
Local 10 News got a look at the online retailer’s Cyber Monday operations, with workers prepared to handle and ship up to one-million packages per day.
“Believe it or not a lot of the products that you see here at MIA1, more than 50 percent of them, are from small to medium sized businesses, to give you an idea, that sell on the platform,” said Torres.
In order to speed up the process, Amazon uses a series of robots which bring pallets of products directly to the workers, who can sort them, scan them and get them ready to be shipped.
The Opa-locka location has 22 miles of conveyor belt. The building alone is more than 14 football fields long at about 855 thousand square feet.
This year, one of the biggest factors impacting consumer spending is inflation, now at a 40-year high.
Despite that hurdle, Amazon still saw record-breaking Black Friday sales. It is a trend they hope will continue on this Cyber Monday.
“We had a record-breaking Black Friday worldwide. It’s a concern of ours, but we see a lot of our customers shopping for toys this year, beauty products, to give you an idea,” said Torres.
All of this comes just a few days after Amazon announced up to 10,000 positions would be cut. Those cuts, however, turned out to be corporate positions and did not impact workers at the Opa-locka facility.