The Amazon Fulfillment Center in the Enterprise South industrial park in Chattanooga.By the numbers• 12: Metro areas nationally, including Atlanta, where Amazon offers same-day delivery• 28: Number of football fields that could fit in Amazon’s Chattanooga distribution center• 80,000: Amazon seasonal jobs created nationally at its distribution centers this yearSource: AmazonHow it worksAt Amazon’s Chattanooga distribution center, workers pick, pack and ship customer orders.Items come in through inbound operations where they are checked in by employees. Then, workers stow products on shelves. When an item for sale is ordered, an employee picks it off the shelf. That item is packed for shipment, and it’s scanned so the correct box is identified on a computer screen. Conveyor lines send packages to outbound to be sent to customers.
Lisa Burke said Monday this is the fourth year in which she has hired on at the Amazon Chattanooga distribution center for the online retailer’s Christmas holiday shopping crush.
She said that Cyber Monday, during which millions of Americans logged on and shopped via their computers and phones, was a mandatory overtime day in a week in which she expects to work about 60 hours.
“That helps with Christmas,” the Ringgold, Ga., woman said about the extra money she’ll earn.
Inside the center, workers were intently trying to meet the holiday demand in which more than 426 orders every second were expected to be taken worldwide by Amazon.
Company spokesman Rena Lunak said 36.8 million items were ordered though Amazon on Cyber Monday 2013. Based on early online shopping, she said company officials expected even bigger sales this year.
“With the deals we’re offering and people shopping online, we still expect this year will be bigger,” Lunak said over the hum and jangle of merchandise carried over conveyors.
Research firm comScore said that e-commerce spending for the first 28 days of the November and December shopping season totaled $22.7 billion, up 15 percent from last year. Sales jumped 32 percent to $1 billion on Thanksgiving Day and 26 percent on Black Friday to $1.51 billion.
The firm expects people to spend about $2.5 billion on Cyber Monday alone. The National Retail Federation predicts 126.9 million people will shop online this year, down 4 percent from last year.
ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni told the Associated Press that the strong spending online so far stems from the “overall health in consumer spending, responsiveness to the strong deals being offered online, and perhaps some shoppers opting to stay home on Thanksgiving rather than head out to the stores that opened their doors early.”
More people shopping on mobile devices is also spurring growth. The National Retail Federation predicted that one in five people would use a mobile device to shop on Cyber Monday.
Amazon hired 80,000 people nationally this year to meet demand for the Christmas season, up from 70,000 a year ago.
Amazon employee Joy Moore packs a box full of goods on Cyber Monday at the Amazon Fulfillment Center in the Enterprise South Industrial Park in Chattanooga.On Monday morning, the Chattanooga distribution center’s expansive parking lot at Enterprise South industrial park was nearly full with employee vehicles. The facility has about 2,500 full-time workers plus hundreds brought on for the holiday crunch.
Also, Amazon’s Charleston, Tenn., distribution center has about 500 full-timers, a number that could double with the temporary employees, officials have said.
Lunak pointed to the combination of people and technology inside the centers. Some sites within Amazon’s 50 or so distribution centers nationally this season are aided by robots, though not yet in Chattanooga or Charleston.
“We’ll look to roll those out everywhere,” Lunak said. “There’s no timetable. They will help associates do their job better.”
She said Amazon continues to look at the use of drones for delivery in the future.
For this Christmas, popular items for Amazon shoppers include “anything Frozen,” Lunak said, citing the movie.
“We’ve got a ton” of items from the film, she said.
Also, an Optimus Prime toy from the Transformer movies made by PlaySkool is big, Lunak said.
In terms of Amazon products, its Fire TV streaming media boxes are among the company’s best deals along with its tablets, she said.
In 2011, Amazon built its Hamilton Place mall-sized centers in Chattanooga and Charleston, investing $139 million. Unlike the Chattanooga center, the Charleston site focuses on larger items such as lawn mowers, hot tubs, grills and other goods.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.