34 ms·

Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

530 points by psim1 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
- johnhughesco 7y ago
  shut up
eanzenberg 7y ago
We notice delivery on Amazon is out to 3-4 days now (on prime) and were not sure if it was due to supply or demand. Seems like demand.
- system2 7y ago
  In LA, it is around 6-7 days. I placed some orders, "earliest delivery" is saturday. My other orders are still in transit...
  - _rs 7y ago
    Same in NYC
- tedmiston 7y ago
  In my area (midwest) Amazon (Prime) delivery is out to about 4 days. But it does seem to depend on the item. I ordered a tennis racquet "Prime" yesterday that was in stock and the quoted delivery isn't until Friday / Saturday. Prime Now is now unavailable entirely. At checkout, it simply says "No delivery times available" for all stores. Amazon Fresh also gives no available delivery windows.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
    Northeast, also looking at 4 days out for prime deliveries depending on the item. Anything not in their regional hub is 4 days, things stocked regionally are still two days for new. I expect this to change soon.
  - brianbreslin 7y ago
    I'm in Miami and its 4 days Prime now. I live 20 miles or less from 2 distribution centers.
  - teejmya 7y ago
    Colorado, I ordered some grilling stuff yesterday and it's another three days out. They're definitely struggling for the same reason grocery stores are; it's not a stock limitation, it's not enough hands to move it.
    - thathndude 7y ago
      If amazon, a master of logistics, is struggling, imagine some of these other e-tailers and online shops. Got an email from a company i do work with, and they’re calling for 21 day delays for shipping items, and suspending new orders. Just because they literally cannot package and ship fast enough.
  - pkaye 7y ago
    According to a news article from yesterday, Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods delivery have been stopped.
    - chx 7y ago
      Do you have a source?
      - pkaye 7y ago
        I tried to find the source but it looks like it was more speculation in a Reddit post. Sorry for the wrong info. Perhaps Amazon is just being overloaded.
    - reaperducer 7y ago
      There was an article in Reuters or WSJ or something similar about this. It was a computer glitch, and temporary.
    - techslave 7y ago
      in my area (bay area) you have to place the order at midnight. that is when the next time slots open up.
- spike021 7y ago
  Demand, I think. I wanted to order a few necessities and an extra thing (pizza pan). The pizza pan quite likely wouldn't be highly in demand during this (or I'm quite wrong, I don't know) but even with Prime it won't arrive for 4 days.
  - sitdownyoungman 7y ago
    it's all in the same pick and place system in their warehouses, so i strongly suspect that everything will be impacted in some way.
    - a9h74j 7y ago
      Also (I presume): limited capacity in delivery, no matter how fast they can pick/place/package.
- robotnikman 7y ago
  Same. I honestly don't mind if my orders are arriving a little later, I just hope they treat their warehouse workers better.
  - Symbiote 7y ago
    I wish they'd treat their warehouse workers better, and pay a fair tax, so until they do I'm not buying anything from Amazon. I use alternative, usually local or national rather than multinational, suppliers.
    - jcrites 7y ago
      Can you clarify what you mean by "pay a fair tax"? I would assume that Amazon (like most publicly traded companies) pays all the taxes that it's required to by law. > “Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.” -- Judge Learned Hand (1872-1961), Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals
      - scholia 7y ago
        The problem is that multinational corporations can devise complicated ways to avoid paying taxes in the countries where they do business by exploiting tax havens, as Apple did in Ireland. Amazon has a huge business in the UK with offices, staff, stock and warehouses, but Amazon UK doesn't sell stuff. You are actually buying UK goods from UK warehouses with UK delivery etc but the money goes straight to Amazon EU Sarl in Luxembourg, where it has a sweetheart tax deal. So Amazon exploits the whole UK social system of education, health services, roads, police etc etc without paying the UK government for the benefits. This is really bad for the UK and other countries except Luxembourg. Meanwhile, Amazon EU Sarl reduces its taxes by paying Amazon Europe Holding Technologies SCS - a "non-resident" company -- hundreds of millions of euros for "intellectual property" rights that are basically untaxed (Amazon is paying itself), and the money gets spirited back to the USA. The cost of "intellectual property" is really just a made-up number. What is Amazon charging itself vast amounts of money for when its UK website and business processes are basically the same as its American and other websites? The whole thing may be legal but it's basically a fraud, and the EU ordered EU ordered Amazon to repay €250m in “illegal tax advantages”. Which is still chickenfeed for a company of Amazon's size and wealth. It's highly likely that European countries will introduce a "digital tax" on turnover to stop this kind of cheating. I expect Americans will get angry if or when that happens, but in the long run, we don't have an alternative. Infrastructure is expensive, and the money should come from the people who are benefiting from it. In the US, of course, Amazon gets tax breaks from people who want Amazon investment. New Jersey offered $7bn of tax incentives in its bid for Amazon's "second headquarters". If companies like Amazon actually paid the taxes required by law that would be nice. Instead they have armies of people finding wholly artificial ways to legally avoid paying those taxes.
- gambiting 7y ago
  Here in UK it seems fine. It's 9pm here and I just placed an order for delivery tomorrow.
  - ctz 7y ago
    Amazon Pantry UK is four days for me, and still charging for "one day" delivery.
- justinzollars 7y ago
  Could be both
- bsharitt 7y ago
  I noticed my Amazon orders earlier today were scheduled way out(I've been practically next day on everything Amazon Prime recently) and it didn't even occur to me that it was tied the panic buying.
- taurath 7y ago
  In Seattle some items are a few days, and some are over a week out (currently saying the 24th).
neonate 7y ago
https://archive.md/Eyu8A https://archive.md/Eyu8A
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jfengel 7y ago
I hope they're finding ways to help keep them safe in the process. It would be a huge benefit for people to be able to order things online, but not if the warehouses themselves become cesspools of transmission.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  Probably Amazon is aware that if health officials shut down their warehouses, their entire retail business goes to hell. It's in their best interest to be hypervigilant.
  - threatofrain 7y ago
    If Amazon even meets a bump on the road in terms of its logistical performance, and merely due to acts of chance and nothing they could have anticipated, then the whole nation would be put on edge. How would lockdown even make sense without Amazon's logistics reassuring the population?
    - adventured 7y ago
      You have to do it the old fashioned way, pre Internet. Restricted & spaced lines at physical stores or supply locations. Take/get a number access to shopping resupply at stores or supply zones that are cleaned frequently. You move into a real quarantine program. This sit at home and order stuff from Amazon approach, isn't anywhere near that. It would require the US military and national guard to implement and keep functioning properly. You need someone with huge scale, federal power (overrule local bullshit), and national reach to ensure safety, supply, delivery and make hard decisions as they crop up.
  - Johnny555 7y ago
    I'm sure that at least Amazon grocery delivery would be considered a vital service and wouldn't be shut down lightly.
Animats 7y ago
Safeway is also hiring in a big way.
- notJim 7y ago
  When I went to the store on Saturday, they said they did more business on Friday than before Thanksgiving last year.
  - p1mrx 7y ago
    Friday was the first time I ever used a cart at Safeway.
sremani 7y ago
From what I heard (5th hand info) in China, most of the restaurant workers went to work for eCommerce and food delivery jobs.
- sho 7y ago
  No need to couch it in such qualifications, although your information is a bit old. The Chinese delivery companies (Meituan, eleme) indeed went on a temp hiring spree for idle restaurant workers during the shutdown. That was a month ago; things are thawing out now.
crazygringo 7y ago
I mean, here in Brooklyn you literally cannot order AmazonFresh. No delivery slots no matter how far in the future you scroll. And it's been this way for at least a couple of days now. So makes sense.
- tedmiston 7y ago
  Are your options also today, tomorrow, day after; or can you see beyond that?
  - spike021 7y ago
    Not parent comment, but I was able to look at next week, but there were no open slots there either.
    - kube-system 7y ago
      We just got a message that said "No delivery windows are available. All remaining delivery windows for today and tomorrow are currently unavailable. Check back for updates or try again tomorrow"
  - wdb 7y ago
    No deliveries in London with Tesco util like 6th of April and the stores quite empty too. I am running out of food :(
- teejmya 7y ago
  Same in Colorado as of yesterday at least.
- ertemplin 7y ago
  Same in Seattle
- Bedon292 7y ago
  Another comment here says all Fresh delivery has been stopped at the moment. I assume it has something to do with not being able to stock the store fast enough, let alone deliver it. Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22597969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22597969
adamsea 7y ago
Will these workers get paid sick leave and health care?
- kube-system 7y ago
  Maybe not if they're seasonal, but if they're part-time or full-time hires, then yes.
cactus2093 7y ago
Amazon seems pretty constrained by supply to me right now. Everything I have looked for to stock up on from them due to the current conditions (alcohol wipes, nonperishable food, etc) is sold out. But maybe they have scaled up supply more than I realize and workers are becoming more of a bottleneck than inventory. Even if everything was in stock I'd expect my overall online purchases to decline in the next few months. I'm not really worried about new clothes if I'm not going outside, and a lot of things like toys and gadgets I usually waste money on seem a lot less important with a worldwide pandemic growing exponentially outside. I'm probably an outlier though in terms of how much I spend/waste on online shopping discretionary spending in normal circumstances (and a lot of that discretionary spending like clothes is not going to amazon anyway).
- dcolkitt 7y ago
  > Everything I have looked for to stock up on from them due to the current conditions (alcohol wipes, nonperishable food, etc) is sold out. Do you have any idea what the full industrial capacity of the American economy is? These type of basic items are all dead-simple to manufacture, and highly unlikely to run into supply-chain interruptions. I guarantee you that once Americans get the full on prepping instinct out of their system, the inventories will all be replenished by next week at the latest. This isn't the collapse of industrial civilization. The factories are churning at 100% capacity. People won't keep stockpiling six months of toilet paper every single week. There's virtually zero chance that there's any significant supply interruption beyond a few days.
  - Frost1x 7y ago
    Toilet paper hoarders: "Hold my burrito."
  - vimy 7y ago
    >Supply Chain Expert Tells Tucker What Coming Shortages Americans Should Know About, And It’s Not Toilet Paper - Fox news had Daniel Stanton on over the weekend (link). Forget about toilet paper shortages, that'll pass. Worry instead about disinfecting wipes, hand sanitizers, the hospital masks. "We need more of those than what we would normally consume,” he said. “For those things, we need to be increasing capacity, maybe creating some new supply chains, and in a lot of cases, we are dependent on foreign manufacturing and long-distance transportation to get those supplies.” Stanton said the U.S. could experience an inability to make several products Americans “want to buy” in the coming weeks. Axios echoes this (link), pointing out that that some food producers could find themselves without enough employees to manufacture, deliver and unpack groceries. The U.S. imports a lot of food from China, where factories are currently closed — meaning a possible supply chain challenge. Phil Lempert, a California-based food industry analyst, told the Washington Post "We’re going to have two-, three-, four-month lag time until those factories get back up to speed.” Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/supplychain/comments/fjleyw/covid19_update_monday_16th_february/ https://www.reddit.com/r/supplychain/comments/fjleyw/covid19...
allovernow 7y ago
Do we know yet what the probability of packaging borne transmission is? Has anyone seen anything? I saw one study describing virus lifetime on various surfaces but I don't think they tested cardboard. Also I don't know what they're expecting. They either have mountains of stock or they'll be laying these people back off soon when factories close. I think supplies out of China are still disrupted.
- gregschlom 7y ago
  NPR talked about a study testing cardboard actually. Up to 24h under ideal conditions. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/14/811609026/the-new-coronavirus-can-live-on-surfaces-for-2-3-days-heres-how-to-clean-them https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/14/8116090... Link to study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v...
  - allovernow 7y ago
    That's actually really good news, thank you. You can just leave packages outside for a day or two.
    - stevenwoo 7y ago
      Paranoid thought - what if it's on plastic or exposed steel on something inside the package (like the wrapping on a box or an ladle that doesn't come fully enclosed in a box), you need to wait three days or so.
      - allovernow 7y ago
        I have an old Windex spray bottle that ive filled with rubbing alcohol and I've been blasting everything with extreme paranoia. Honestly statistically speaking in most areas out chances of coming into contact with the virus are still quite low. There's 300MM+ people here and even if 1MM are infected, those are good odds.
tinyhouse 7y ago
Did you see those videos of 1000s of people in line to enter Costco? Same thing is happening with online shopping.
submeta 7y ago
Buy Amazon stocks?
- adventured 7y ago
  Not on the basis of retail demand. Their retail margins are horrible, as with most of the industry. AWS and advertising are where their margin and profit centers are. In terms of retail support action - Costco's stock is one of the few large companies that hasn't cratered. It's not much lower than its average for the year, whereas most everything else has been hammered. You could double Amazon's retail sales in the US and it will get you a few extra billion dollars in profit. The problem is retail makes up a very modest share of their overall profitability. So it won't move the needle much on a $840 billion market cap. It works for Costco because essentially all of their market cap is based on retail sales and the demand surge they're seeing. So you get a direct IV line between the crazy panic buying and the COST stock. Although, if there are supply problems coming up next, be careful holding COST as well.
  - qvrjuec 7y ago
    On what basis? I see operating income between AWS and retail being relatively similar. The margins for AWS are much better, but retail is still driving a huge amount of profit for Amazon.
product50 7y ago
Where is the comment here on billionaire taxes? Literally Amazon is the only company because of which I feel comfortable right now sitting in my house vs. panic buying.
- rosybox 7y ago
  You likely couldn't panic buy anyways, stores are limiting what you can buy. Online and offline.
  - supdatecron 7y ago
    I got groceries today in a large metro city. Only thing limited was milk.
    - jackson1442 7y ago
      HEB has a laundry list of things being limited[1]. [1]: https://newsroom.heb.com/product-purchasing-limits/ https://newsroom.heb.com/product-purchasing-limits/
- lexs 7y ago
  What does this have to do with billionaire taxes?
- satysin 7y ago
  Here in France literally everything on Amazon.fr that I would like to order is unavailable for delivery until next Monday. In Lyon at least. I won't say everything is like that but I have been looking at some school supplies as my son is home and I have been unable to find anything for delivery this week.
  - progval 7y ago
    In Melun it's delay by only one or two days compared to baseline.
- Frost1x 7y ago
rhegart 7y ago
This makes up for a large number of recently laid off service workers
wonderwonder 7y ago
That's awesome! Good to see a spark of positivity right now.
cwperkins 7y ago
This virus is a real opportunity for the firms who faced a big reputation hit in 2008 to step in and show that they care.
tlrobinson 7y ago
One of the more worrying things to me is how this pandemic (and/or our response to it) will disproportionately affect small businesses and individuals. As Amazon hires 100k workers how many jobs are being lost by small businesses failing?
- taurath 7y ago
  Amazon is now the only store open. This will clearly accelerate the death of retail, to the point that I'm not even sure it will survive. We must have a rent holiday if those businesses and their workers are to survive.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    > We must have a rent holiday if those businesses and their workers are to survive. We'll get a lot of rent forgiveness naturally. If a strip mall has some tenants who cannot make rent in this crisis, who are they going to get who can pay? The pragmatic approach is to keep your existing tenants, because their survival is your strip mall's survival.
    - michaelt 7y ago
      A cynical, calculating strip mall landlord might think they're more likely to get a government cash handout (or a cash handout to their tenants who then hand it to them, which is effectively the same thing) if they prove their tenants will go bankrupt without it.
      - WalterBright 7y ago
        It simply does the landlord no good at all to evict them.
    - taurath 7y ago
      Will that happen for housing? The businesses will lose all their workers during that time, and everyone will go work in an amazon warehouse.
WalterBright 7y ago
I suspected Amazon would do well in this crisis, and this development confirms it. My elderly neighbors, for example, are now ordering their groceries online and having them dumped on their doorstep.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  Lucky them. Amazon in my area hasn't had an available delivery slot in almost a week.
  - VectorLock 7y ago
    Mine had a few slots open days later then unceremoniously canceled the order hours after they were supposed to arrive.
  - servercobra 7y ago
    Same in LA. I got through by checking in at midnight. Took 4 days to get groceries, but almost everything showed up (like 57/59 items)
- GarrisonPrime 7y ago
  > I suspected Amazon would do well... Until people camping at home start getting sick, with their common factor being Amazon Fresh delivery.
  - system2 7y ago
    Unlikely but plausible. I rather order raw stuff from amazon and do my sanitizing rather than order food from an unknown kitchen, delivered by a driver who was in contact with god knows how many people. Either ingredient delivered home, or I will go out and buy things myself which is probably riskier.
hirundo 7y ago
If this were a Bond movie, Bezos would be cackling in his secret lair about how his viral plan was coming to fruition. Bond (played by Idris Elba) would then cough on Bezos, who would whip out his antidote, which Bond would grab, escape, and release to the world before being killed by Thanos. (Pitch Meeting, call me)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rodneyg_ 7y ago
  Top comment of the month
- SQL2219 7y ago
  He looks like Lex Luther.
  - nixpulvis 7y ago
    More like Mr Evil. Prolly has a base on the dark side of the moon.
    - lobotryas 7y ago
      But see, unlike Mr Evil, Bezos is competent.
    - hkmurakami 7y ago
      Ahem, that’s “Doctor” Evil.
      - nixpulvis 7y ago
        Don't be silly, he doesn't wear a lab coat.
    - dmd 7y ago
      Fortunately, the new moon is just a week away, at which point the "dark side" of the moon will be facing Earth and we'll have a clear view of his base.
meerita 7y ago
No matter how many, some people will complain about this. There is a huge recesion in the entire world and a company is willing to hire more people and haters gonna hate.
ezioamf 7y ago
At some point even Amazon workers will have to stop working to contain the virus. How Amazon if going to provide safety to workers when even doctors with all protection still gets the virus?
- y10 7y ago
  People who get the virus and recover will be able to go back to work without risk of being infected.
  - derision 7y ago
    Re-infection has not been thoroughly studied yet
sys_64738 7y ago
How do you stay 10 feet from other people? No gathering of more than 10 people, too?
uberduper 7y ago
Seeing Amazon surge hire 100k people makes me think of Zorg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0mO6UY6uTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0mO6UY6uTg
m0zg 7y ago
I really hope Bezos brings the full power of Amazon's distribution network to bear on this crisis. Traditional retailers seem strictly worse from the epidemiological perspective - you have to go to the store and there are hundreds of people there at least a few of whom will have the virus, if not now, then 2 weeks from now. They are also largely failing to cope with panic buying, whereas Amazon's efficiency only gets better if people buy a lot of stuff. I also hope Amazon does this responsibly, and creates the conditions in which the strictest possible social distancing could be maintained for people working in the warehouses. It's pretty clear to me that we can't shut down the economy due to this for any extended period of time. We also can't do these planet-scale epidemiological drills every year. If that's the case, we should figure out a way to alleviate our current predicament as much as possible until there is a vaccine or a cure. Amazon can be a large part of that.
34679 7y ago
Don't thousands of people work in each warehouse? Are Amazon workers immune? At some point, some of these facilities are going to have closures. I wouldn't predict smooth sailing for Amazon just because they're mail-order instead of brick and mortar.
- michaelchisari 7y ago
  From what I've seen, keeping regular distance would be easier than most workplaces, and with proper procedures in place (regular sanitization, taking temperatures, etc) you could keep the spread to minimal. But you're right, it would not be immune to labor disruptions. Right now, if I was an Amazon worker, I'd be hitting up every other employee about forming a union ASAP. They're going to want that kind of bargaining power to protect themselves.
QuadrupleA 7y ago
Hard to find a non-cynical comment on HN these days, so I'll just say: this is cool. A way for people to get crucial goods in a relatively safe way, and some new jobs with a pay boost in a time of economic instability.
- markovbot 7y ago
  Amazon is profiting off a global health crisis. How could one not be cynical?
  - ahawkins 7y ago
    So increase their capacity to meet demand is a bad thing?
  - swiley 7y ago
    This I don’t understand. They’re providing an important service to everyone and keeping them from going out and getting sick, I’d hope that’s profitable to do!!! Next you’ll say hospitals are profiting off the global health crisis?
  - thathndude 7y ago
    And the hospitals that will bill for treatment of coronavirus? Profiting off a global health crisis? Providing basic necessities (I just bought some flour on Amazon and gladly paid for it) is not profiting off a crisis.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  > Hard to find a non-cynical comment on HN these days Given the history of Amazon, how can you be anything but cynical?
themagician 7y ago
Amazon is only as good as it’s suppliers. If people can’t get to work to make things, Amazon doesn’t get new stock and they have nothing to sell you.
vkaku 7y ago
Well, this is actually not a bad idea from Amazon. Hope they pay well and don't screw these guys over.
justlexi93 7y ago
I don't know if I should be happy about it or not. The world is currently having a tough time battling Covid-19. How safe it is for these people to work during the outbreak?
ecommerceguy 7y ago
From what I'm seeing: Grocery Health and Beauty way up; everything else way down. If I were a RA person I'd be buying buying children's games from Walmart and hope the input warehouse can handle the influx of shipments. RA is still alive and well for the hustlers. I'm rooting for them!
lqs469 7y ago
Death Stranding: Real World Edition
gandutraveler 7y ago
To all amazon haters in HN community, where do you guys do online shopping ? Walmart ?
ArchBang 7y ago
Why not have the delivery and logistics of goods just exist as a general public service? Then put the potential profits made into running a better society.
- tifadg1 7y ago
  By that train of thought, why not have a socialist society and put the potential profits into running a better society?
- blackoil 7y ago
  Because govt normally does poor job in aligning incentive and effort for efficiency. Amazon will try to be most efficient because they are getting back all the profit out of it. Govt should make sure labour, monopoly laws and taxes are aligned with society's expectations.
LOLShiner 7y ago
It's a designer virus.

530 points by psim1 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

johnhughesco 7y ago
shut up

eanzenberg 7y ago

We notice delivery on Amazon is out to 3-4 days now (on prime) and were not sure if it was due to supply or demand. Seems like demand.

system2 7y ago
In LA, it is around 6-7 days. I placed some orders, "earliest delivery" is saturday. My other orders are still in transit...
- _rs 7y ago
  Same in NYC
tedmiston 7y ago
In my area (midwest) Amazon (Prime) delivery is out to about 4 days. But it does seem to depend on the item. I ordered a tennis racquet "Prime" yesterday that was in stock and the quoted delivery isn't until Friday / Saturday. Prime Now is now unavailable entirely. At checkout, it simply says "No delivery times available" for all stores. Amazon Fresh also gives no available delivery windows.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
  Northeast, also looking at 4 days out for prime deliveries depending on the item. Anything not in their regional hub is 4 days, things stocked regionally are still two days for new. I expect this to change soon.
- brianbreslin 7y ago
  I'm in Miami and its 4 days Prime now. I live 20 miles or less from 2 distribution centers.
- teejmya 7y ago
  Colorado, I ordered some grilling stuff yesterday and it's another three days out. They're definitely struggling for the same reason grocery stores are; it's not a stock limitation, it's not enough hands to move it.
  - thathndude 7y ago
    If amazon, a master of logistics, is struggling, imagine some of these other e-tailers and online shops. Got an email from a company i do work with, and they’re calling for 21 day delays for shipping items, and suspending new orders. Just because they literally cannot package and ship fast enough.
- pkaye 7y ago
  According to a news article from yesterday, Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods delivery have been stopped.
  - chx 7y ago
    Do you have a source?
    - pkaye 7y ago
      I tried to find the source but it looks like it was more speculation in a Reddit post. Sorry for the wrong info. Perhaps Amazon is just being overloaded.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    There was an article in Reuters or WSJ or something similar about this. It was a computer glitch, and temporary.
  - techslave 7y ago
    in my area (bay area) you have to place the order at midnight. that is when the next time slots open up.
spike021 7y ago
Demand, I think. I wanted to order a few necessities and an extra thing (pizza pan). The pizza pan quite likely wouldn't be highly in demand during this (or I'm quite wrong, I don't know) but even with Prime it won't arrive for 4 days.
- sitdownyoungman 7y ago
  it's all in the same pick and place system in their warehouses, so i strongly suspect that everything will be impacted in some way.
  - a9h74j 7y ago
    Also (I presume): limited capacity in delivery, no matter how fast they can pick/place/package.
robotnikman 7y ago
Same. I honestly don't mind if my orders are arriving a little later, I just hope they treat their warehouse workers better.
- Symbiote 7y ago
  I wish they'd treat their warehouse workers better, and pay a fair tax, so until they do I'm not buying anything from Amazon. I use alternative, usually local or national rather than multinational, suppliers.
  - jcrites 7y ago
    Can you clarify what you mean by "pay a fair tax"? I would assume that Amazon (like most publicly traded companies) pays all the taxes that it's required to by law. > “Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.” -- Judge Learned Hand (1872-1961), Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals
    - scholia 7y ago
      The problem is that multinational corporations can devise complicated ways to avoid paying taxes in the countries where they do business by exploiting tax havens, as Apple did in Ireland. Amazon has a huge business in the UK with offices, staff, stock and warehouses, but Amazon UK doesn't sell stuff. You are actually buying UK goods from UK warehouses with UK delivery etc but the money goes straight to Amazon EU Sarl in Luxembourg, where it has a sweetheart tax deal. So Amazon exploits the whole UK social system of education, health services, roads, police etc etc without paying the UK government for the benefits. This is really bad for the UK and other countries except Luxembourg. Meanwhile, Amazon EU Sarl reduces its taxes by paying Amazon Europe Holding Technologies SCS - a "non-resident" company -- hundreds of millions of euros for "intellectual property" rights that are basically untaxed (Amazon is paying itself), and the money gets spirited back to the USA. The cost of "intellectual property" is really just a made-up number. What is Amazon charging itself vast amounts of money for when its UK website and business processes are basically the same as its American and other websites? The whole thing may be legal but it's basically a fraud, and the EU ordered EU ordered Amazon to repay €250m in “illegal tax advantages”. Which is still chickenfeed for a company of Amazon's size and wealth. It's highly likely that European countries will introduce a "digital tax" on turnover to stop this kind of cheating. I expect Americans will get angry if or when that happens, but in the long run, we don't have an alternative. Infrastructure is expensive, and the money should come from the people who are benefiting from it. In the US, of course, Amazon gets tax breaks from people who want Amazon investment. New Jersey offered $7bn of tax incentives in its bid for Amazon's "second headquarters". If companies like Amazon actually paid the taxes required by law that would be nice. Instead they have armies of people finding wholly artificial ways to legally avoid paying those taxes.
gambiting 7y ago
Here in UK it seems fine. It's 9pm here and I just placed an order for delivery tomorrow.
- ctz 7y ago
  Amazon Pantry UK is four days for me, and still charging for "one day" delivery.
justinzollars 7y ago
Could be both
bsharitt 7y ago
I noticed my Amazon orders earlier today were scheduled way out(I've been practically next day on everything Amazon Prime recently) and it didn't even occur to me that it was tied the panic buying.
taurath 7y ago
In Seattle some items are a few days, and some are over a week out (currently saying the 24th).

neonate 7y ago

https://archive.md/Eyu8A https://archive.md/Eyu8A

deleted 7y ago

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jfengel 7y ago

I hope they're finding ways to help keep them safe in the process. It would be a huge benefit for people to be able to order things online, but not if the warehouses themselves become cesspools of transmission.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Analemma_ 7y ago
Probably Amazon is aware that if health officials shut down their warehouses, their entire retail business goes to hell. It's in their best interest to be hypervigilant.
- threatofrain 7y ago
  If Amazon even meets a bump on the road in terms of its logistical performance, and merely due to acts of chance and nothing they could have anticipated, then the whole nation would be put on edge. How would lockdown even make sense without Amazon's logistics reassuring the population?
  - adventured 7y ago
    You have to do it the old fashioned way, pre Internet. Restricted & spaced lines at physical stores or supply locations. Take/get a number access to shopping resupply at stores or supply zones that are cleaned frequently. You move into a real quarantine program. This sit at home and order stuff from Amazon approach, isn't anywhere near that. It would require the US military and national guard to implement and keep functioning properly. You need someone with huge scale, federal power (overrule local bullshit), and national reach to ensure safety, supply, delivery and make hard decisions as they crop up.
- Johnny555 7y ago
  I'm sure that at least Amazon grocery delivery would be considered a vital service and wouldn't be shut down lightly.

Animats 7y ago

Safeway is also hiring in a big way.

notJim 7y ago
When I went to the store on Saturday, they said they did more business on Friday than before Thanksgiving last year.
- p1mrx 7y ago
  Friday was the first time I ever used a cart at Safeway.

sremani 7y ago

From what I heard (5th hand info) in China, most of the restaurant workers went to work for eCommerce and food delivery jobs.

sho 7y ago
No need to couch it in such qualifications, although your information is a bit old. The Chinese delivery companies (Meituan, eleme) indeed went on a temp hiring spree for idle restaurant workers during the shutdown. That was a month ago; things are thawing out now.

crazygringo 7y ago

I mean, here in Brooklyn you literally cannot order AmazonFresh. No delivery slots no matter how far in the future you scroll. And it's been this way for at least a couple of days now. So makes sense.

tedmiston 7y ago
Are your options also today, tomorrow, day after; or can you see beyond that?
- spike021 7y ago
  Not parent comment, but I was able to look at next week, but there were no open slots there either.
  - kube-system 7y ago
    We just got a message that said "No delivery windows are available. All remaining delivery windows for today and tomorrow are currently unavailable. Check back for updates or try again tomorrow"
- wdb 7y ago
  No deliveries in London with Tesco util like 6th of April and the stores quite empty too. I am running out of food :(
teejmya 7y ago
Same in Colorado as of yesterday at least.
ertemplin 7y ago
Same in Seattle
Bedon292 7y ago
Another comment here says all Fresh delivery has been stopped at the moment. I assume it has something to do with not being able to stock the store fast enough, let alone deliver it. Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22597969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22597969

adamsea 7y ago

Will these workers get paid sick leave and health care?

kube-system 7y ago
Maybe not if they're seasonal, but if they're part-time or full-time hires, then yes.

cactus2093 7y ago

Amazon seems pretty constrained by supply to me right now. Everything I have looked for to stock up on from them due to the current conditions (alcohol wipes, nonperishable food, etc) is sold out. But maybe they have scaled up supply more than I realize and workers are becoming more of a bottleneck than inventory. Even if everything was in stock I'd expect my overall online purchases to decline in the next few months. I'm not really worried about new clothes if I'm not going outside, and a lot of things like toys and gadgets I usually waste money on seem a lot less important with a worldwide pandemic growing exponentially outside. I'm probably an outlier though in terms of how much I spend/waste on online shopping discretionary spending in normal circumstances (and a lot of that discretionary spending like clothes is not going to amazon anyway).

dcolkitt 7y ago
> Everything I have looked for to stock up on from them due to the current conditions (alcohol wipes, nonperishable food, etc) is sold out. Do you have any idea what the full industrial capacity of the American economy is? These type of basic items are all dead-simple to manufacture, and highly unlikely to run into supply-chain interruptions. I guarantee you that once Americans get the full on prepping instinct out of their system, the inventories will all be replenished by next week at the latest. This isn't the collapse of industrial civilization. The factories are churning at 100% capacity. People won't keep stockpiling six months of toilet paper every single week. There's virtually zero chance that there's any significant supply interruption beyond a few days.
- Frost1x 7y ago
  Toilet paper hoarders: "Hold my burrito."
- vimy 7y ago
  >Supply Chain Expert Tells Tucker What Coming Shortages Americans Should Know About, And It’s Not Toilet Paper - Fox news had Daniel Stanton on over the weekend (link). Forget about toilet paper shortages, that'll pass. Worry instead about disinfecting wipes, hand sanitizers, the hospital masks. "We need more of those than what we would normally consume,” he said. “For those things, we need to be increasing capacity, maybe creating some new supply chains, and in a lot of cases, we are dependent on foreign manufacturing and long-distance transportation to get those supplies.” Stanton said the U.S. could experience an inability to make several products Americans “want to buy” in the coming weeks. Axios echoes this (link), pointing out that that some food producers could find themselves without enough employees to manufacture, deliver and unpack groceries. The U.S. imports a lot of food from China, where factories are currently closed — meaning a possible supply chain challenge. Phil Lempert, a California-based food industry analyst, told the Washington Post "We’re going to have two-, three-, four-month lag time until those factories get back up to speed.” Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/supplychain/comments/fjleyw/covid19_update_monday_16th_february/ https://www.reddit.com/r/supplychain/comments/fjleyw/covid19...

allovernow 7y ago

Do we know yet what the probability of packaging borne transmission is? Has anyone seen anything? I saw one study describing virus lifetime on various surfaces but I don't think they tested cardboard. Also I don't know what they're expecting. They either have mountains of stock or they'll be laying these people back off soon when factories close. I think supplies out of China are still disrupted.

gregschlom 7y ago
NPR talked about a study testing cardboard actually. Up to 24h under ideal conditions. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/14/811609026/the-new-coronavirus-can-live-on-surfaces-for-2-3-days-heres-how-to-clean-them https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/14/8116090... Link to study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v...
- allovernow 7y ago
  That's actually really good news, thank you. You can just leave packages outside for a day or two.
  - stevenwoo 7y ago
    Paranoid thought - what if it's on plastic or exposed steel on something inside the package (like the wrapping on a box or an ladle that doesn't come fully enclosed in a box), you need to wait three days or so.
    - allovernow 7y ago
      I have an old Windex spray bottle that ive filled with rubbing alcohol and I've been blasting everything with extreme paranoia. Honestly statistically speaking in most areas out chances of coming into contact with the virus are still quite low. There's 300MM+ people here and even if 1MM are infected, those are good odds.

tinyhouse 7y ago

Did you see those videos of 1000s of people in line to enter Costco? Same thing is happening with online shopping.

submeta 7y ago

Buy Amazon stocks?

adventured 7y ago
Not on the basis of retail demand. Their retail margins are horrible, as with most of the industry. AWS and advertising are where their margin and profit centers are. In terms of retail support action - Costco's stock is one of the few large companies that hasn't cratered. It's not much lower than its average for the year, whereas most everything else has been hammered. You could double Amazon's retail sales in the US and it will get you a few extra billion dollars in profit. The problem is retail makes up a very modest share of their overall profitability. So it won't move the needle much on a $840 billion market cap. It works for Costco because essentially all of their market cap is based on retail sales and the demand surge they're seeing. So you get a direct IV line between the crazy panic buying and the COST stock. Although, if there are supply problems coming up next, be careful holding COST as well.
- qvrjuec 7y ago
  On what basis? I see operating income between AWS and retail being relatively similar. The margins for AWS are much better, but retail is still driving a huge amount of profit for Amazon.

product50 7y ago

Where is the comment here on billionaire taxes? Literally Amazon is the only company because of which I feel comfortable right now sitting in my house vs. panic buying.

rosybox 7y ago
You likely couldn't panic buy anyways, stores are limiting what you can buy. Online and offline.
- supdatecron 7y ago
  I got groceries today in a large metro city. Only thing limited was milk.
  - jackson1442 7y ago
    HEB has a laundry list of things being limited[1]. [1]: https://newsroom.heb.com/product-purchasing-limits/ https://newsroom.heb.com/product-purchasing-limits/
lexs 7y ago
What does this have to do with billionaire taxes?
satysin 7y ago
Here in France literally everything on Amazon.fr that I would like to order is unavailable for delivery until next Monday. In Lyon at least. I won't say everything is like that but I have been looking at some school supplies as my son is home and I have been unable to find anything for delivery this week.
- progval 7y ago
  In Melun it's delay by only one or two days compared to baseline.
Frost1x 7y ago

rhegart 7y ago

This makes up for a large number of recently laid off service workers

wonderwonder 7y ago

That's awesome! Good to see a spark of positivity right now.

cwperkins 7y ago

This virus is a real opportunity for the firms who faced a big reputation hit in 2008 to step in and show that they care.

tlrobinson 7y ago

One of the more worrying things to me is how this pandemic (and/or our response to it) will disproportionately affect small businesses and individuals. As Amazon hires 100k workers how many jobs are being lost by small businesses failing?

taurath 7y ago
Amazon is now the only store open. This will clearly accelerate the death of retail, to the point that I'm not even sure it will survive. We must have a rent holiday if those businesses and their workers are to survive.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > We must have a rent holiday if those businesses and their workers are to survive. We'll get a lot of rent forgiveness naturally. If a strip mall has some tenants who cannot make rent in this crisis, who are they going to get who can pay? The pragmatic approach is to keep your existing tenants, because their survival is your strip mall's survival.
  - michaelt 7y ago
    A cynical, calculating strip mall landlord might think they're more likely to get a government cash handout (or a cash handout to their tenants who then hand it to them, which is effectively the same thing) if they prove their tenants will go bankrupt without it.
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      It simply does the landlord no good at all to evict them.
  - taurath 7y ago
    Will that happen for housing? The businesses will lose all their workers during that time, and everyone will go work in an amazon warehouse.

WalterBright 7y ago

I suspected Amazon would do well in this crisis, and this development confirms it. My elderly neighbors, for example, are now ordering their groceries online and having them dumped on their doorstep.

reaperducer 7y ago
Lucky them. Amazon in my area hasn't had an available delivery slot in almost a week.
- VectorLock 7y ago
  Mine had a few slots open days later then unceremoniously canceled the order hours after they were supposed to arrive.
- servercobra 7y ago
  Same in LA. I got through by checking in at midnight. Took 4 days to get groceries, but almost everything showed up (like 57/59 items)
GarrisonPrime 7y ago
> I suspected Amazon would do well... Until people camping at home start getting sick, with their common factor being Amazon Fresh delivery.
- system2 7y ago
  Unlikely but plausible. I rather order raw stuff from amazon and do my sanitizing rather than order food from an unknown kitchen, delivered by a driver who was in contact with god knows how many people. Either ingredient delivered home, or I will go out and buy things myself which is probably riskier.

hirundo 7y ago

If this were a Bond movie, Bezos would be cackling in his secret lair about how his viral plan was coming to fruition. Bond (played by Idris Elba) would then cough on Bezos, who would whip out his antidote, which Bond would grab, escape, and release to the world before being killed by Thanos. (Pitch Meeting, call me)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rodneyg_ 7y ago
Top comment of the month
SQL2219 7y ago
He looks like Lex Luther.
- nixpulvis 7y ago
  More like Mr Evil. Prolly has a base on the dark side of the moon.
  - lobotryas 7y ago
    But see, unlike Mr Evil, Bezos is competent.
  - hkmurakami 7y ago
    Ahem, that’s “Doctor” Evil.
    - nixpulvis 7y ago
      Don't be silly, he doesn't wear a lab coat.
  - dmd 7y ago
    Fortunately, the new moon is just a week away, at which point the "dark side" of the moon will be facing Earth and we'll have a clear view of his base.

meerita 7y ago

No matter how many, some people will complain about this. There is a huge recesion in the entire world and a company is willing to hire more people and haters gonna hate.

ezioamf 7y ago

At some point even Amazon workers will have to stop working to contain the virus. How Amazon if going to provide safety to workers when even doctors with all protection still gets the virus?

y10 7y ago
People who get the virus and recover will be able to go back to work without risk of being infected.
- derision 7y ago
  Re-infection has not been thoroughly studied yet

sys_64738 7y ago

How do you stay 10 feet from other people? No gathering of more than 10 people, too?

uberduper 7y ago

Seeing Amazon surge hire 100k people makes me think of Zorg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0mO6UY6uTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0mO6UY6uTg

m0zg 7y ago

I really hope Bezos brings the full power of Amazon's distribution network to bear on this crisis. Traditional retailers seem strictly worse from the epidemiological perspective - you have to go to the store and there are hundreds of people there at least a few of whom will have the virus, if not now, then 2 weeks from now. They are also largely failing to cope with panic buying, whereas Amazon's efficiency only gets better if people buy a lot of stuff. I also hope Amazon does this responsibly, and creates the conditions in which the strictest possible social distancing could be maintained for people working in the warehouses. It's pretty clear to me that we can't shut down the economy due to this for any extended period of time. We also can't do these planet-scale epidemiological drills every year. If that's the case, we should figure out a way to alleviate our current predicament as much as possible until there is a vaccine or a cure. Amazon can be a large part of that.

34679 7y ago

Don't thousands of people work in each warehouse? Are Amazon workers immune? At some point, some of these facilities are going to have closures. I wouldn't predict smooth sailing for Amazon just because they're mail-order instead of brick and mortar.

michaelchisari 7y ago
From what I've seen, keeping regular distance would be easier than most workplaces, and with proper procedures in place (regular sanitization, taking temperatures, etc) you could keep the spread to minimal. But you're right, it would not be immune to labor disruptions. Right now, if I was an Amazon worker, I'd be hitting up every other employee about forming a union ASAP. They're going to want that kind of bargaining power to protect themselves.

QuadrupleA 7y ago

Hard to find a non-cynical comment on HN these days, so I'll just say: this is cool. A way for people to get crucial goods in a relatively safe way, and some new jobs with a pay boost in a time of economic instability.

markovbot 7y ago
Amazon is profiting off a global health crisis. How could one not be cynical?
- ahawkins 7y ago
  So increase their capacity to meet demand is a bad thing?
- swiley 7y ago
  This I don’t understand. They’re providing an important service to everyone and keeping them from going out and getting sick, I’d hope that’s profitable to do!!! Next you’ll say hospitals are profiting off the global health crisis?
- thathndude 7y ago
  And the hospitals that will bill for treatment of coronavirus? Profiting off a global health crisis? Providing basic necessities (I just bought some flour on Amazon and gladly paid for it) is not profiting off a crisis.
dntbnmpls 7y ago
> Hard to find a non-cynical comment on HN these days Given the history of Amazon, how can you be anything but cynical?

themagician 7y ago

Amazon is only as good as it’s suppliers. If people can’t get to work to make things, Amazon doesn’t get new stock and they have nothing to sell you.

vkaku 7y ago

Well, this is actually not a bad idea from Amazon. Hope they pay well and don't screw these guys over.

justlexi93 7y ago

I don't know if I should be happy about it or not. The world is currently having a tough time battling Covid-19. How safe it is for these people to work during the outbreak?

ecommerceguy 7y ago

From what I'm seeing: Grocery Health and Beauty way up; everything else way down. If I were a RA person I'd be buying buying children's games from Walmart and hope the input warehouse can handle the influx of shipments. RA is still alive and well for the hustlers. I'm rooting for them!

lqs469 7y ago

Death Stranding: Real World Edition

gandutraveler 7y ago

To all amazon haters in HN community, where do you guys do online shopping ? Walmart ?

ArchBang 7y ago

Why not have the delivery and logistics of goods just exist as a general public service? Then put the potential profits made into running a better society.

tifadg1 7y ago
By that train of thought, why not have a socialist society and put the potential profits into running a better society?
blackoil 7y ago
Because govt normally does poor job in aligning incentive and effort for efficiency. Amazon will try to be most efficient because they are getting back all the profit out of it. Govt should make sure labour, monopoly laws and taxes are aligned with society's expectations.

LOLShiner 7y ago

It's a designer virus.