EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. — When I got this assignment, I thought I would be walking into a scene from a Christmas movie: packages flying everywhere, frazzled employees. But Amazon STL 4 was pretty peaceful.
"I want to welcome you to our fulfillment center here in Edwardsville," General Manager George Bowman said with a smile as he showed off STL 4. "Just under 800,000 square feet, that's about 14 football fields. We have about 700 associates."
STL 4 in Edwardsville, Illinois, is not the facility taken down by the EF-3 tornado two years ago. STL 4 handles mostly medium-sized packages for Amazon.
"We process about 50,000 units through our outbound unit and then during peak it goes up about another 20,000," Bowman said.
Units are packages you order. Christmas is busy, but Bowman said, "It ebbs and flows throughout the day."
He said orders surge in the evening when people are off of work and have time to shop.
As I watched box after box pass by, I looked to see what people were ordering. I saw fitness equipment, a giant tiger stuffed animal and a blast from the past... a pogo stick.
"The number one item we handle is keyboards, for laptops," Bowman said, "the second one is toilet paper, then Pampers and then the fourth item is actually paper."
Boxes of boring printer paper, but during Christmas there is a different standout.
"Barbie is number 1," Bowman said with a laugh. "Barbie is number 1 hands down. Everything Barbie, if you go over to our receive area, we have hundreds of palettes of Barbies."
Barbies and toilet paper are picked, packed and sent out from the Amazon STL 4 in Edwardsville. If you have presents left to order on Amazon, you have until Dec. 21 to make sure they arrive on time for Christmas.