Amazon distribution center is in full swing in Weston

Rich Palzewic

Staff

September 2, 2024

WESTON – Before an Amazon driver delivers a package to a doorstep in North Central Wisconsin, it’s being sorted at a new distribution center in the Village of Weston.

In operations since July, Scott Seroka, regional PR manager with Amazon, said the new facility, located at 7007 County Road J – right along Highway 29 – is for last-mile or final-stop deliveries.

“When we say ‘last-mile or final-stop deliveries,’ the new facility like we have in Weston is just that – the last stop before your package is delivered to your doorstep,” he said. “Usually, that’s within a 50-mile radius, but sometimes, it’s a bit further in rural areas. That’s one of the things we’re still working on in Weston because there are some fairly rural areas we deliver to.”

Seroka said the online retail platform’s newest distribution center – also known as a delivery station – is almost 80,000 square feet in size.

Weston Village Administrator Jami Gebert said the new facility “is an outstanding addition to the community.”

“We congratulate Amazon on the opening of its new facility, and we’re happy they’re here,” she said. “With opportunities for flexible work schedules and the potential for future growth, the village is excited Amazon selected Weston. Amazon’s cooperation throughout the entire development process was appreciated and seamless. We look forward to a long and successful future together.”

Why Weston?

Seroka said Amazon studies the numbers when deciding on a new facility – and it’s not just a random spot.

“We follow the data, see where our customers are and where they’re ordering from,” he said. “And when sufficient interest and volume and orders come from a certain area, we look to build facilities there. That’s why we’re excited to be in North Central Wisconsin and serve that population.”

Seroka said having some “decent-sized cities around Weston” certainly helps as well.

“You’ve got Wausau, Stevens Point, Marshfield, Merrill, up to Rhinelander, etc.,” he said. “As we look at our network…, we identified a gap in Central and North Central Wisconsin, which is the reason we’re happy to plant roots in Weston.”

How it works

When customers order a package from Amazon, Seroka said a robot in a fulfillment center brings the item ordered to an associate, and it starts working its way through that fulfillment center.

According to Amazon.com, Amazon has about 185 fulfillment centers globally, including 110 in the United States.

“Fulfillment centers can be hundreds of thousands of square feet in size,” Seroka said. “There is one in Kenosha, another in Minneapolis, (another one by Appleton) and several in the Chicago area, too. Fulfillment centers are where Amazon stores all of its items – up to 40 million products can be in these warehouses.”

At the fulfillment center, Seroka said packages get ready for delivery – going through several scans and packaging processes.

“(They are then placed) onto what’s likely a line haul truck and taken to what’s known as a sortation center,” he said. “At the sortation facility, we take those products and break them down – by city and zip code.”

The final step, Seroka said, is the delivery stations – which the facility in Weston is.

“From the delivery station, items are loaded in vans by drivers and taken to your doorstep,” he said. “Maybe things are sorted by apartment building depending on how our orders are. It could also be broken down by day or by neighborhood. The drivers pick up orders in the morning and get them to folks throughout the day. The whole process of going from a fulfillment center to a delivery station, especially as it pertains to Weston, probably happens in two days, possibly one. It’s quite a logistical cycle and hard to imagine a package goes through three buildings and miles and miles on the road in as little as 24 hours.”

Economic impact

Not only is the new facility a good tax base for the Village of Weston, but Seroka said it’s also bringing in plenty of jobs to the area.

“Currently, in Weston, we have about 90 Amazon associates working,” he said. “They work the overnight hours into the early morning. They’re the ones who are there when the trucks arrive. They’ll take the pallets off the trucks, and then they start that sort cycle. All of those associates are Amazon employees.”

However, the delivery drivers, Seroka said, are contracted workers and not Amazon employees.

“We anticipate when that Weston site is totally up to speed and running fully by about Christmas, we could have up to 200 drivers,” he said. “Currently, we’re sending out 40 routes per day. When we started (in July), we were doing 14 routes per day. We’re still growing that network. We’ll be getting bigger and better, bringing more volume in and bringing in more associates and drivers until we get to a number where we can keep expanding our service and increasing our delivery speed.”

With more people doing online shopping because of its simplicity, convenience and the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Seroka said he knows one thing – “we’re busy.”

“We just take the orders and fill them,” he said. “Our larger network probably isn’t growing as big or as quickly as our delivery network like those facilities in Weston and Greenville (near Appleton), for example. The footprint and operations are similar to the ones we have in both La Crosse and Eau Claire, which opened two years ago.”