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The e-commerce giant is reportedly securing a warehouse space in west Dublin for packing and shipping out Irish orders locally.
Amazon is reportedly preparing to open its first fulfilment centre in Ireland, which will speed up deliveries to Irish customers.
Bloomberg first reported that the e-commerce giant is in the process of securing a 650,000 sq ft warehouse in Baldonnell in west Dublin.
This would be Amazon’s first full-fledged fulfilment centre in Ireland where orders are packed and shipped out.
Orders to Ireland have typically been fulfilled in the UK. Last year, Amazon opened a delivery warehouse in Rathcoole for Amazon Prime orders as a go-between, where its local delivery partner Zeus Logistics could pick up orders arriving from the UK. Most other Amazon shipments are currently handled by An Post.
The Baldonnell fulfilment centre would mean faster deliveries for Irish orders as stock would be held in Ireland. Crucially for Amazon, it would avoid the extra shipping charges and logistics delays coming from the UK that have been brought on by Brexit. For Irish sellers on Amazon, they would have access to the tech giant’s marketplace and logistics locally.
Amazon has not commented on the fulfilment centre reports, but The Irish Times reported that An Post has welcomed the news.
“By avoiding the Brexit pipeline, Amazon can get their parcels to us in An Post faster for immediate delivery to the customer. We work closely with Amazon who value our logistics and local expertise,” Gilles Fernandez, the sales director of An Post Commerce, said.
Amazon’s already dominant position in online retail was reinforced last year during the Covid-19 pandemic as lockdowns drove e-commerce activity to record highs. It opened new fulfilment centres in the UK to meet this growing demand and launched in Sweden for the first time.
Last July, Amazon announced 1,000 new jobs in Dublin and Cork – mostly technical roles to support its Amazon Web Services operations and data centres here. It is not known how many people would be employed at the new Dublin fulfilment centre.
