Amazon widens its offering to Geelong customers with new delivery service
American online behemoth Amazon has launched a free next-day delivery service in Geelong, a move set to benefit both customers and businesses.
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The world’s largest online retailer is launching a free next-day delivery service in Geelong, a move set to benefit both customers and businesses.
Amazon started the service from its Geelong distribution centre on Wednesday, meaning its Prime members can now make an order with no minimum spend as late as midnight and have the items at their door the next day at no cost other than a $10 monthly membership fee.
The company’s Geelong centre, which opened in September within the former Ford site, has the capacity to process up to 6000 packages daily.
“We are able to offer customers fast delivery speed as a result of our continuing investment and expansion into our operations in Australia,” Amazon Australia general manager Matthew Benham said.
“By building fulfilment centres and delivery stations close to where our customers live and work, packages travel shorter distances, which enables us to speed up delivery.”
Customers aren’t the only ones set to benefit, with local business owner Donna Johnson of Zena Sport now able to get her products to customers faster.
Ms Johnson runs Zena alongside husband Brad, the former Western Bulldogs champion, providing protective equipment to female athletes.
“We get a lot of requests during the week wanting protection vests for the following weekend and to get them to people isn’t always necessarily that easy,” she said.
“Now with Amazon being down here in Geelong, for Prime members to get next day delivery is just awesome for our customers.”
Ms Johnson said Zena had evolved beyond providing equipment to Australian rules participants.
“We’re scaling into the US, with the help of Amazon which has been amazing, and it’s really popular among softball and lacrosse athletes over there,” she said.
“It’s going in lots of different directions now, not just AFL, which is exciting.”
Amazon employs more than 1.5 million people globally, including about 7000 in Australia.
The e-commerce giant was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and has evolved into one of the largest companies in the world.
It generated revenue of $837bn last financial year, putting it above the likes of Apple, ExxonMobil, and Google parent company Alphabet.
Mr Bezos currently ranks as the second wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of almost $300bn according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
He trails only Tesla founder Elon Musk, whose wealth is estimated at $308bn.
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