Reuters reported that Amazon.com Inc spent a whopping USD13.9 billion for its warehouses to to facilitate their strategy to fulfill client demand.
The move is also to keep up with its competitors eBay Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Amazon had started putting up 50 new facilities since 2010 and has gone up to 89 facilities at the end of 2012. Five more warehouses was said to be put up this year. Dave Clark, Vice President of Amazon.com's Worldwide Operations and Customer Service, added in a Chattanooga interview, "We've standardized them in such a way that opening them and replicating them happens very fast."
Aside from the real property investment, Amazon has opened more than 5,000 full-time jobs to help run its 17 facilities. The company was also gearing to add an additional 2,000 in customer service staff to a 20,000-strong employee workforce. The company executives said that costs to fulfilling client demand was necessary in order to surpass their current 15% reach in the US. They have also postulated that the extra facilities and the added manpower will increase current reach to 50%.
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