E-Commerce is proving to be a fairly competitive space, and every retailer out there is looking for the next big strategy to help with expansion. One company that’s doing quite well in this category is online retailer Amazon.
Continuing in its quest to become the go-to eCommerce merchant around the world, Amazon has announced news that it’s going to up a new distribution center in Bristol, England, next year and will hire on 1,000 new workers into permanent roles. It should come as no surprise that the online retailer is moving forward with these plans, as the U.K. ranks in Amazon’s list as its third-largest market outside the U.S.
In 2016, the company reached $9.5 billion in Amazon U.K. sales, which is a 20 percent jump from the prior year — perhaps due to the introduction of products like the Amazon Echo into U.K. markets and additional voice apps and skills being added to its Alexa voice assistant. In the past year alone, Amazon has invested triple its 2016 investments, reaching $513.96 million so far in 2017. Since the year 2010, the online retailer has invested a total of $8.3 billion in the U.K.
With this new growth over in Amazon’s U.K. market, alongside its rapid expansion in the U.S., it may be safe to say that Amazon has cemented its place in the retail industry arena. The company plans to open four new distribution centers in the U.S. this year, which will bring its total in the country up to 16.
As we reported late last month, Amazon is planning to buy up several U.S. marketplaces to further expand its presence in the country and make more global deliveries. With new distribution warehouses and fulfillment centers popping up all over the world, Amazon shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. Retailers looking to stay ahead in the eCommerce space will need to significantly ramp up efforts to keep up.
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