Amazon is beginning to enforce new efforts to help deal with the increased demand for household products caused by the growing concern over the coronavirus (COVID-19). With more people being told to stay home across the country, there has been a huge increase in online orders coming through Amazon, making it just as difficult to keep things in stock as it is for local markets. It is leading to many product pages showing as out of stock, and deliveries to run later than normal.
In order to handle the high-demand of these items, Amazon has decided to only accept certain categories of shipments coming into their fulfillment centers. These categories include the same household items that you have been finding missing from stores, including food, toilet paper, sanitizer wipes (and liquid), cleaning supplies and more.
This affects third-party sellers as well as large-scale vendors looking to sell through Amazon and will remain in effect until April 5th. By doing this, they are hoping to open the pipeline for essential items coming in (and out to deliveries) and allowing for a greater number of orders to be processed to help get these items to those who need them as quickly as possible.
Amazon is also looking to hire up to 100,000 positions across the country to help deal with this demand. This could include positions within the fulfillment centers or delivery. They are also inflating the pay of their current employees by $2 to help soften the amount of pressure some of these employees are experiencing each day.
Meanwhile, local stores are fighting just as hard to keep product in stock for customers. Many stores have been experiencing empty shelves due to the rush of customers looking to stockpile essential items at home, despite authorities pleading with the public not to. Thankfully, companies like Costco have been limiting the number of items per customer to help reduce this each day and doing a wonderful job at managing lines to help fulfill as many carts as possible with the items they need and keep lines these moving at a reasonable pace.
It is important for shoppers to know that grocery stores will continue to remain open, even if everything else shuts down in their city. This is a mandatory step in maintaining peace and order in these times of craziness. So spend more time coming up with projects around the house to accomplish, like breaking into that pile of your favorite video games you’ve been meaning to conquer, and less time panicking. As the quote goes, be calm and carry on. There’ll be no zombies here.
1 Comment
We sure need the jobs out there with so many being laid off