As part of Amazon’s initiative to be more accessible, they’re opening their doors to their customers!
This week, Chief Angel Karen visited Amazon’s Dunfermline based fulfilment centre. You, too, can tour one of their eight centres in the UK and see first-hand how Amazon delivers to its customers. Just take a look here:
https://www.aboutamazon.co.uk/amazon-fulfilment/tour-an-amazon-fulfilment-centre/
On arrival the sheer scale of the centre (the equivalent of 17 football pitches, to be precise) became clear. With such a huge number of staff and visitors for an operation of this size, security has to be tight.
We were guided around the facility by the general manager. Sticking to the blue lines, we were shown each zone; from huge pallets of white goods, all ready to be shipped directly to your door, to small items such as books, where it all began for the business originally named Cadabra Inc.
The centre is organised to a level of military precision to be as efficient as possible – every step is calculated, every job time is optimised and every product is completely traceable throughout the entire process.
In the lead up to Christmas and shortly afterwards, there can be as many as 3500 members of staff working at the Dunfermline centre; at this time of year, it’s slightly less. The staff has great, themed break out spaces. For example, we saw the T in the Park and Amazonian Rain Forest spaces, each with its own cooking facilities, computers, vending machines and separate chill out areas.
After our tour, 150 Amazon sellers joined together for a superb Amazon Academy. Here, we had the opportunity to ask questions not only to members of the Amazon team but also to mentors from Scottish Enterprise as well as a whole host of Amazon and small business advisors.
Another highlight was fellow entrepreneur Michael Corrigan of TRTL. He talked us through his entrepreneurial journey - from the idea stage through to the hard work of building prototypes and releasing their products on the market - and told anecdotes all too familiar to those overcoming hurdles within their own start ups.
TRTL join Angels’ Share Glass in the Clicks and Mortar store in Waverley Mall, Edinburgh. Clicks and Mortar is an Amazon incentive, in collaboration with Enterprise Nation, which aims to help small and medium independent online sellers to use empty units in shopping malls and on the high street. Sponsored by Directline, this is a great opportunity to revive high streets and shopping centres by creating pop up stores for online businesses in, what would otherwise remain, empty outlets. Clicks and Mortar currently have stores in Cardiff and Manchester, as well as Edinburgh, with more planned for the future.
Our Angels’ Share Glass products are now available on Amazon Prime.
Our best selling items are our Droppers, Whisky Tasting Sets, Glass Quaichs and Angels and these are all available for prime delivery in America, Canada, Australia, Japan as well as the UK and Europe.
Of course, you can still order directly from our own website!