SAN ANTONIO – Amazon Prime Day kicked off on Tuesday, and it will end Wednesday night at midnight.
Amazon warehouses across the world are busy, including several fulfillment, sorting and delivery centers in South Texas.
The delivery center in Von Ormy is one of the three delivery centers in the San Antonio area.
“So we prepare for this all year long,” Sheldon Houston, the delivery center’s operation manager said. “This is our Super Bowl and we’re ready for it.”
When you add to a cart and click purchase, your packages make a couple of stops before they arrive at your door, even if they are getting delivered on the same day.
“When they hit that, I’m going to buy this button, it goes to our fulfillment centers,” Houston said. “They are dispersed out to the sorting centers, they sort them out us, the delivery centers. And then from us, we get them on the road to our customers.”
Last year was the biggest day for Amazon Prime Day, with over 300 million products purchased. Locally, it’s also a really big next couple of days.
At the Amazon Von Ormy delivery center, they process on average about 50,000 packages a day, but that number will go up to around 80,000 packages a day.
Across the San Antonio area, an estimated 500,000 packages will be processed at local delivery centers over the next couple of days.
The economic impact isn’t just felt internationally from Prime Day, but locally, with Amazon hiring more drivers on the road.
“To ensure that we get those packages out, meet our customer promise, we have to hire more people so we bring more people for both internally again and our drivers,” Houston said. “We’re going to have at least 500 cars, trailers on the road.”
More hands on deck are needed at the warehouses as well, Houston said.
“Normally we use around 80 people a day, but today we’re at 145,” Houston said.