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The journey of a Christmas gift: A look inside a Jacksonville Amazon fulfillment center

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — With Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the rearview mirror and Christmas up ahead, Amazon is busier than ever.

Chris Tireney, the general manager of the “JAX2″ Amazon Fulfillment Center in Jacksonville, said they typically see between 350,000 to 400,000 shipments a day throughout the year. However, Tireney says they’ve been doing over 700,000 during this holiday season.

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“And in order to do that, we have to hire on some seasonal help to help us get up to that capacity,” Tireney said. “We’ve already got a lot of amazing associates here at ‘JAX2.’ We bring on seasonal help at that time, and it helps us deliver more smiles to our customers.”

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Tireney said his fulfillment center has hired around 800 seasonal employees for this holiday season, 800 of which he hopes will stick around past the holiday rush.

Each package that goes through the facility goes through a complex process that starts with what is called a “picker.” First, the picker takes merchandise brought to them on a robotic machine and puts them into yellow bins. Next, those bins are sent down to packing, where employees pack the items into their individual boxes. Lastly, the items are shipped right to the customers’ front doors.

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“Around 60 to 90 minutes from the time that the item is packed to the time that it’s on our ship dock is about the amount of time that they last through each of those three processes in our building,” said Jennifer Martinez, Senior Operations Manager at “JAX2.”

The “JAX2″ facility has more than 3,500 employees and has been running since 2017, serving people holiday wishes one box at a time.

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