Angela Baciu describes an Amazon Delivery Centre in southeast Calgary as where “the magic is happening.”
The Regional Manager for the Prairie Region for Amazon said it’s the last mile for packages before they are delivered to people’s doorsteps.
The Calgary facility, one of two in Calgary, is 164,000 square feet. The other facility is about 200,000 square feet. The southeast location opened in August 2020 while the northern location opened last September.
“The packages come to our delivery station. We are sorting based on where it’s going to be delivered. Then we take the bags and they are taken by a third-party of drivers who then deliver the packages,” said Baciu.
The packages come initially from either a fulfillment centre or a sort centre.
From these two stations, Calgary is split in half where deliveries are handled. The centres cover the City of Calgary and surrounding areas.
The number of packages that go through a last mile site is mind-boggling.
“Imagine that this site started in 2020 with 4,000 packages per day. Now in peak, what we consider peak is November and December when we’re having the high volume events, we had 3.7 million packages that are spread between six weeks,” said Baciu. “On an average day, taking out a high volume event, just this station we’re talking about 50,000 packages per day.”
During high volume event days like Prime for example that number can soar up to 125,000 packages per day.
Earlier this year, Amazon announced plans to cease operations at seven facilities in Quebec over the next two months. The closures include one fulfillment centre, two sorting centres, three delivery stations, and one AMXL (extra-large) delivery station co-located with a sorting centre. This decision will impact approximately 1,700 regular employees and 250 temporary seasonal workers in the province.
The company stated that it will revert to a third-party delivery model supported by local small businesses, a system previously in place until 2020. Amazon spokesperson Barbara Agrait emphasized that this move aims to maintain high-quality service and offer greater savings to customers in the long term. She clarified that the decision was not influenced by the unionization of 200 employees at Amazon’s DXT4 warehouse in Laval, Quebec, which occurred in May 2024.
In the company’s 2024 annual report, Amazon said it is a “powerful engine of growth for the Canadian economy. Through innovation, investments, and job creation, Amazon is helping transform the economic potential of communities across the country.
“Since 2010, we’ve made direct investments in our Canadian operations of more than $50 billion. This includes both capital expenditures (such as the fulfilment centres and data centres we build) and operating expenditures (such as the jobs we create). These direct investments create a ripple effect through the economy: Keystone Strategy, an independent economics consulting firm, estimates that Amazon’s investments contributed an additional $43 billion in spillover value-added effects to the Canadian GDP between 2010 and 2023 (Amazon’s spillover value-added effects represent the indirect effects of Amazon’s investments on Canada’s GDP. Amazon’s investment has indirect effects in the economy due to the expanded production of firms that supply the goods and services purchased by Amazon).
“These investments have helped us create more than 46,000 good jobs with competitive pay and benefits across Canada, at our corporate Tech Hubs in downtown Toronto and Vancouver and our close to 70 Operations and logistics sites from coast to coast.”
Related Retail Insider stories:
- Amazon releases annual investment in Canada report
- Amazon to Close Quebec Operations, Affecting 1,700 Employees
Why is there an article featuring Amazon during a trade war with the US?
Because free press.