Amazon unveils a Boise-area same-day delivery site. See how fast you can now get packages
Until now, if you needed an item today, you had to go to a store to buy it. Now Amazon has horned in on the I-need-it-fast market by bringing same-day delivery to the Treasure Valley.
The online retailer has opened a 165,000-square-foot warehouse in northeast Nampa near Saint Alphonsus Medical Center that uses cutting-edge automation technologies and robotics to rapidly process customers’ orders and send them out for delivery.
In fact, site leader Auston Ayres promises the site can deliver any of more than 100,000 items stocked in the building to your doorstep within five hours of ordering. Amazon’s site should tell you if your item is among those that can be delivered that quickly.
“One of my managers here had a good story,” Ayres said. “He was like, ‘Man, I was at the house yesterday, and I was really, really busy, and I realized we were out of diapers but I couldn’t run because I was by myself.’ So immediately he was able to order them and get them to his house within five hours.”
The fulfillment center quietly began operating about two weeks ago. On Tuesday, Amazon went public with the news. The center is positioned to serve most of the Treasure Valley, from Caldwell through East Boise. It’s the company’s first same-day delivery site in Idaho.
Not only can the site quickly process and deliver smaller items like earphones, books or shampoo, it can bang out bigger items like dog food, baby strollers or toilet paper in the same time frame.
Logistics are the key to keeping things on track. The site uses high-speed sorting and real-time tracking systems, according to Tareq Wafaie, who manages Amazon’s economic development initiatives in Idaho.
Workers pick items, prepare for shipping
Wafaie told the Statesman during a tour of the warehouse that the products are stored at random in hundreds of yellow “towers,” so that if there’s a spike in demand for a certain item, the entire system doesn’t get bogged down.
“It’s intentionally chaotic,” Wafaie said.
The towers, which sit on robots that look like giant Roombas, move strikingly fast given the tall load above them, weaving side-to-side and front-to-back in a fenced-in area like cars in traffic. A computer-based algorithm works behind the scenes to direct the towers to various employees’ stations along an assembly line, allowing them to pick out products that customers just ordered and prepare them for shipping.
Then, workers place the packages on a long conveyor belt that runs the length of the building. The whir of machinery fills the air.
All the automation serves to hasten the process but also to reduce repetitive movements by employees that could lead to injuries. In the building’s sortation zone, hampers raise and lower depending on how many packages are inside, keeping boxes in an ergonomically ideal place for workers to grab them.
Wafaie maintained that safety is Amazon’s No. 1 priority. About 400 people work at the site.
The $60 million same-day delivery site does more than just accelerate delivery times, said Matthew Gardea, a spokesperson for the company. Gardea told the Statesman that the warehouse is capable of processing and sending out as many as 20,000 orders a day to meet quick turnaround demands.
Nampa mayor thanks Amazon
During a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday, Nampa Mayor Debbie Kling touted the site’s significance to the area.
“I’m just thankful that we in the city of Nampa have the opportunity to benefit from Amazon’s presence here and the support that it has for our local community, both in education and fulfillment for small businesses,” Kling said. “This is a great day.”
The warehouse, at 2802 E. Comstock Ave., adds to Amazon’s presence in the Boise area. The company now has three fulfillment centers, four delivery stations and one Whole Foods market in the Treasure Valley. Amazon’s newest delivery station in Idaho at 2660 W. Fred Smith St. in Meridian opened earlier this year.
This story was originally published October 8, 2024 at 4:31 PM.
