in brief According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, giant international Internet retailer and cloud computing giant Amazon is considering deploying a distribution centre — Amazon-speak for giant warehouse filled with goods to ship to customers — in Australia. The newspaper reports (click here for the full article):

“It is understood representatives of the global giant are preparing to visit in coming months to tour prospective sites down the eastern seaboard with the potential to lease an existing property, or sign up as a pre-committed tenant for a greenfields property.”

The move comes as The Australian newspaper has recently reported in July last year that the company was planning to set up an Australian datacentre. Amazon has since advertised for Australian staff for a local facility, and has also ramped up the number of staff it has in Australia to meet customer demands, although the company has as of yet announced any datacentre facilities locally.

Hosting an Australia-based distribution centre would mean Amazon would be able to ship some products to Australian customers faster, although the facility would not be able to house the same breadth of products as its giant US warehouses. It is likely products popular in Australia — such as Amazon’s Kindle e-reader — would be shipped from the facility locally, if it eventuates.

Image credit: Amazon

Tweet

1. Dan Warne
   Posted 18/04/2012 at 5:01 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Oh my god, yes PLEASE! I’ve been waiting for them to do this for years. Would revolutionise retail in this country. (As long as they source their stock overseas, rather than buying from local distributors.)

2. Nich
   Posted 18/04/2012 at 5:05 pm | Permalink | Reply

   It’d be revolutionary if they set up amazon.com.au rather than just a warehouse.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 18/04/2012 at 5:28 pm | Permalink | Reply

     +1

   • Ron
     Posted 18/04/2012 at 6:43 pm | Permalink | Reply

     For the last 2 1/2 years 95% of my book purchases have been Kindle ebooks via Amazon.com.

     I have a feeling we would pay more for books bought via Amazon.com.au as has happened with amazon.co.uk. ( Also bookdepository.com books are generally cheaper now than those from bookdepository.co.uk. Amazon bought bookdepository in July last year.)

     • Sam
       Posted 19/04/2012 at 12:47 am | Permalink | Reply

       We already pay more for ebooks on amazon.com. The Australian kindle store prices are often higher than the US one. The ‘Your Country or Region’ setting on the left menu shows what store you’re viewing.

3. Matt
   Posted 18/04/2012 at 5:11 pm | Permalink | Reply

   It’s great.. the only problems are:

   - It wont be quite as cheap as in the US
   - We will have to pay GST (+1 on cost)
   - As above it won’t have the same scale
   - I don’t see us getting free shipping deals or Amazon Prime (tho could be wrong)

   It will of course change the landscape regardless. It will be highly utilise and Australian eRetailers will be in line for a lot of buttpain except this time they wont be able to complain about the GST..

4. Nich
   Posted 18/04/2012 at 5:20 pm | Permalink | Reply

   I’m a little curious if we’ll see the same horror stories that have come from workers stuck in Amazon’s US distribution warehouses – moreso if that will even be possible under Australian workplace legislation.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 18/04/2012 at 5:28 pm | Permalink | Reply

     Perhaps — international companies are often surprised by the labor laws in Australia.

   • Nich
     Posted 18/04/2012 at 5:32 pm | Permalink | Reply

     http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor for context

5. looktall
   Posted 18/04/2012 at 9:14 pm | Permalink | Reply

   we will just end up with yet another local distributor raping our wallets and bank accounts.

6. Michael Harris
   Posted 19/04/2012 at 12:20 am | Permalink | Reply

   I don’t mind Amazon opening a warehouse in Australia, however I have moral concerns as to how – at least in the US – that industry is staffed.

   I’d encourage anyone to have an objective read of this 1st hand investigation into the warehouse industry published last month on Mother Jones – which as I write this comment, notice that Nich has already referenced above.

   While I’d hope Australian labour laws, safety regulations and union organisation would prevent the situations described in that article happening on our shores – we need to be vigilant and aware of these issues, and be asking ourselves what’s the real cost of that bargain item we purchased online.

   Yeah, sorry to go all highbrow here – but we all need to be putting people before profits (or savings to our wallets).

7. Stephen
   Posted 19/04/2012 at 4:19 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Mmm – Amazon local. And yes, I’ve read that Mother Jones article (I’m a subscriber) and don’t think it could happen in Australia. We have much stronger IR laws.

   At least with a local Amazon I’ll stop seeing how much either they or my bank are directly ripping me off with the exchange rate.

   • SMEMatt
     Posted 19/04/2012 at 4:39 pm | Permalink | Reply

     With the way WHS laws have change and are changing in this country it wouldn’t take long for a company exec to be facing jail time if those condition followed.

8. GetReal558
   Posted 23/04/2012 at 10:49 am | Permalink | Reply

   Who says they need to hire anyone in their warehouse. They bought Kiva Systems and their robots recently to combat that issue.
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UxZDJ1HiPE

• • Topic
  • Voices
  • Posts
  • Freshness
• • 77TB a month on fibre

    Started by:  Karl in: General telecommunications

  • 1
  • 1
  • 16 hours, 56 minutes ago

     Karl

  • Malcolm Turnbull, Time Traveller

    Started by:  quink in: Everything else

  • 2
  • 4
  • 1 week, 1 day ago

     Karl

  • Article on 'Ultraviolet'

    Started by:  ray73864 in: Everything else

  • 2
  • 2
  • 1 week, 3 days ago

     Karl

  • Surface sells out … of its tiny amount of stock?

    Started by:  Renai LeMay in: Gadgets

  • 4
  • 4
  • 1 week, 4 days ago

     douglasrose

  • Coalition fraudband plan summary…

    Started by:  Hubert Cumberdale in: National Broadband Network

  • 4
  • 5
  • 2 weeks, 3 days ago

     JamesH1

  • NBN Is A Question Of Reliability

    Started by:  JamesH1 in: National Broadband Network

  • 1
  • 1
  • 2 weeks, 3 days ago

     JamesH1

  • Renai asked:

    Started by:  Tinman_au in: National Broadband Network

  • 1
  • 1
  • 2 weeks, 3 days ago

     Tinman_au

  • What Happened to Whirlpool posts

    Started by:  MikeK101 in: Everything else

  • 2
  • 2
  • 1 month ago

     Bob.H

  • Conroy/Turnbull NBN Debate Next Week

    Started by:  zephram in: National Broadband Network

  • 1
  • 1
  • 1 month ago

     zephram

  • Blocked from posting? Let me know

    Started by:  Renai LeMay in: Everything else

  • 2
  • 2
  • 1 month ago

     Abel Adamski

  • Falsehoods of the day

    Started by:  Karl in: National Broadband Network

  • 4
  • 5
  • 1 month, 2 weeks ago

     Anonymous

  • Is IBM selling its Network Services Division to Telstra?

    Started by:  Renai LeMay in: Everything else

  • 1
  • 1
  • 1 month, 3 weeks ago

     Renai LeMay

  • 10 Terabit NBN plan? Yes please :)

    Started by:  daniel996 in: National Broadband Network

  • 2
  • 2
  • 1 month, 3 weeks ago

     Karl

  • Renai (or anyone else?): List of working tags?

    Started by:  Tinman_au in: Everything else

  • 3
  • 6
  • 2 months ago

     midspace

  • Receiving spam from "OEMSoftware Newsletter"?

    Started by:  Renai LeMay in: Everything else

  • 4
  • 4
  • 2 months ago

     midspace

•