It’s been rumoured, considered, confirmed, unconfirmed, whispered about, considered, confirmed again… and now finally we’ve got an official statement of purpose: web behemoth Amazon is ready to charge full steam ahead into Australia, almost certainly making Gerry Harvey cry.
The US online retail giant is currently actively looking for a warehouse to become their central fulfilment centre – either in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. Their planned space has a floor space of up to 93,000 square metres, or – as Fairfax has helpfully calculated – about five MCGs.
There are already over 1000 Amazon employees working in Australia, and they’re looking at add hundreds more as they bring their retail operation in.
“Amazon Web Services launched an Australian region in 2012, we launched a Kindle store on amazon.com.au in 2013 and we now have almost 1000 employees in the country,” Amazon said.
“The next step is to bring a retail offering to Australia, and we are making those plans now.”
“We are optimistic that by focusing on the things we believe customers value most — low prices, vast selection, and fast delivery — over time we’ll earn the business of Australian customers.”
The magical concept of one-hour delivery via Amazon Prime is also expected to be a reality in Australia too. It has been reported that they expect to kick everything off in September, but sources told Business Insider that some of the retail offering could come online sooner.
Amazon already does $1 billion in sales in Australia by shipping from overseas. That’s probably about to get a whole lot bigger.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald.
Photo: South Park.
