Take a look inside Amazon’s new Memphis station
Amazon is adding to its more than 6,500 employees in Tennessee with a new delivery station in Memphis, which will sort packages for vans to deliver to area customers.
Amazon provided a glimpse of the facility September 19, demonstrating how the delivery station at 3347 Pearson Rd. in southeast Memphis will play into the e-commerce giant's growing area operations.
More than 240 full- and part-time employees will staff the station, sort packages and send them off to customers, according to Amazon.
How the Amazon station works
The packages sorted at the facility come from different Amazon fulfillment and sortation centers. After being unloaded from freight trucks, the packages travel on a conveyor belt and Amazon employees place them into bags, said James Shively, regional operations director for Amazon Logistics.
“We don't talk publicly around our operations, but we do process tens of thousands of packages here in this facility every single day,” Shively said of the
station near Interstate 240 and Lamar Avenue.
Labels on the packages tell the employees which bags they go into.
“Our associates work in partnership with our technology to sort these packages into ZIP codes,” he said.
Those bags are then placed onto delivery vans and driven to their destinations, which may be for residential or commercial customers. Kyle Mcelhaney owns the local delivery service provider Mid-south Area Carriers that takes the packages where they need to go.
Every morning, the provider's drivers load packages at the facility into their vans before driving the routes prepared by Amazon.
Mcelhaney said his business started “100% because of Amazon” and “100% serves Amazon.” He said he employs more than 50 people in the area.
“As last-mile delivery continues to grow, I hope my company keeps pace with that,” he said.
Will there be more Amazon in Memphis?
The delivery station adds to Amazon's presence in the Memphis area, home of logistics giant Fedex. Fred Smith, Fedex's founder and CEO, said September 17 that Amazon is one of the entities “we wake up every day trying to think about how we compete against” them.
Beyond the new delivery station, Amazon has a $70 million receiving center at 3292 Holmes Rd. and a $10 million sortation center at 5155 Citation Dr., both in southeast Memphis. Amazon also is building a fulfillment center in Marshall County, Mississippi, south of Collierville.
There's also a chance the massive warehouse operation planned for North Memphis, dubbed "Project Iris," is Amazon's doing.
Amazon has been criticized for unsafe working conditions at its warehouses and using a decentralized delivery network that prevents accountability. Shively said workplace safety is Amazon's “No. 1 priority.” He added Amazon listens and addresses concerns from associates “head on.”
At the end of the facility tour, Amazon revealed a donation of $10,000 worth of STEM equipment and supplies to Getwell Elementary School in Memphis.
Max Garland covers Fedex, logistics and health care for The Commercial Appeal. Reach him at max.garland@commercialappeal.com or 901-529-2651 and on Twitter @Maxgarlandtypes.