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Amazon Tipped To Launch November, Robotic Warehouses Coming

Amazon Tipped To Launch November, Robotic Warehouses Coming

A leading global currency exchange Company who works closely with Companies who sell on Amazon has said that Amazon, intends to launch later this year with late November tipped, we can also reveal that Amazon intends to install a multi million dollar logistic operation in Australia that mirrors’ their UK robotic warehousing operation.

ChannelNews exclusively revealed last month that Amazon will launch in 2017 we have now been told that several overseas brands who currently sell on Amazon have been locked into Amazon contracts to supply products from November 2017.
World First Australia managing director Ray Ridgeway works with about 60 per cent of Australian traders who currently sell on Amazon marketplaces overseas, providing international receiving bank accounts and handling supplier payments.

He told The Australian Financial Review “The minute Amazon puts its boots on the ground and launches Marketplace you’re going to get a flood of interest,” Mr. Ridgeway said.

“That’s what we’ve seen in every country where Amazon has gone – even though eBay has been here for a number of years, it just doesn’t have that cut-through Amazon tends to have.”

While retailers such as Harvey Norman chairman Gerry Harvey continue to rail against the online retail juggernaut’s imminent arrival, smaller online and omni-channel retailers appear to be ready to embrace the opportunity to reach new customers through Amazon Marketplace.

Last week, Beacon Lighting, which already sells on Amazon in the US and Europe, said it was investigating setting up shop on Amazon’s Australian site.

E-commerce pioneer Ruslan Kogan is also eyeing Amazon Marketplace to turbocharge Kogan.com’s private label sales growth.

Mr. Ridgeway says most successful sellers experience 50 per cent sales growth when they set up shop on a marketplace.

According to a World First survey of Australian online traders selling internationally, Amazon is by far the most popular online marketplace (60 per cent) followed by Shopify (15 per cent) and eBay (10 per cent), with 60 per cent of respondents selling on more than one platform.

During a visit to Dubai this week ChannelNews was told that Amazon management will set up a totally robotic warehouse similar to what they operate in Manchester in the UK.

A recent Financial Times article revealed that this is where tall upright shelves robotically go to waltz in and out of each other’s paths and around stationary storage units, weaving backwards, forwards or sideways without touching.

Amazon began deploying its robots in Britain last year. At the Manchester site, an $150m investment, some 2,500 are controlled by a central server that gives instructions about their speed and next location, based on a system of bar codes on the floor.

“They are basically following marching orders,” says Roy Perticucci, vice-president of Europe customer fulfilment at Amazon.

Each robot is capable of carrying 340kg and has a forward-facing laser and camera that detect obstacles, such as fallen items. Only trained technicians are permitted to enter the operating area and the system runs 24/7, apart from an hour’s down time every day for maintenance.

The variety of tasks undertaken in the broader sector has led to deployment of other innovative robotics systems.
They said that squat orange machines on wheels that are just 16 inches tall roam the warehouses.

The only humans in sight are around a caged perimeter surrounding the robots, where the storage units arrive for goods to be picked by staff through gaps in the fence, according to instructions from computer screens.

“Up until now… . we’ve had these long aisles people walk up and down to find an item, pick it off a shelf and scan it, put it in a tote or on a cart to go somewhere,” says Perticucci.

“Now we have the shelves moving to the picker and that makes a huge difference. I would say [it’s] arguably the start of an assembly line working in logistics.”

Robots transform logistics industry

Many functions that were once solely done by human hands are being carried out by robots as advanced automation takes root it was reported. Amazon says it is creating employment by expanding its UK logistics network. The company is opening four new facilities in 2017 that will eventually recruit around 3,500 people.



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