TRACY, Calif. — For the first time in Tracy, customers can finally see for themselves what's been hidden behind closed doors at the Amazon Fulfillment Center.
"They drive by our fulfillment centers and they see four big walls, and they wonder what happens? Are there little elves working inside?" Dani Tafoya, an Amazon tour specialist said.
You can now book a tour the same way you purchase anything else on Amazon, with one click of a mouse.
Guests are first invited to put on headsets to hear their tour guide because it's so loud inside the building.
"We're so proud of our safe environment for our associates, and also just the positive work environment that we want our guests, our customers, as well as the general public to come in and just see how fun Amazon is," Tafoya said.
People on the tour get to see the entire process, from the moment a customer clicks "buy." They even get to see the Amazon robot floor, which picks a product out of inventory before sending it through the building on massive conveyor belts.
"It was amazing on so many fronts. The mechanization and the robotics and the logic that's happening there was pretty compelling. But it was also amazing to see how the people were kind of overseeing everything. I think we saw seven different quality checkpoints along the way," Linsly Donnelly, a San Jose resident said.
With the announcement of these tours the City of Tracy told ABC10 last month, they're excited about this program for the potential of bringing more tourism to town. And it seems they were right, Donnelly drove in from San Jose.
"Just to think about the complexity of what they're dealing with, 20 million SKU items in here. It looks so easy. It's like a seamless dance with all of the robots," she said.
Donnelly visited on business, but hopes to bring her whole family back next time.
"I think what's cool about it is seeing how they all fit together; as this puzzle piece in the system that's smooth, and very clean and well orchestrated. And to see how those all connect, and where the different paths are going through the different facility, and you can't really get a photo of that and you can't see where there are maybe like five different work stations. So it's worth seeing it all together," she said.
There are, however, quite a few things on this tour that guests are not allowed to take photos, so if you want to see what's actually inside of this building, the community is invited to come see it in person.
To book a tour in Tracy, click here.
Tours at the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Sacramento are still in the works. Those are set to begin this spring.
Continue the conversation with Lena on Facebook.
________________________________________________________________
On Thursday ABC10's Lena Howland took a tour of the Amazon.com Fulfillment Center in Tracy, Calif. "It was my first time here and the tour definitely did not disappoint," Lena said. Here’s a quick recap of what she saw inside!