CLEVELAND — It is the busiest online shopping day of the year. So, what happens between the time you click a cyber deal, and a package arrives at your doorstep? The nation’s largest online retailer takes us inside a delivery station during its busiest time of year.
It started with clean sneakers in mind.
“We’ve done a million in sales so far,” said Richard Brown the Founder and CEO of Proof Culture.
Proof Culture is a sneaker care business; it was started by Brown in 2019, who sells his products through Amazon.
“This is my first product,” said Brown. “It was a product that we made because customers wanted us to restore their sneakers.”
Brown is one of more than a million independent sellers on Amazon who will benefit from cyber-Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the year.
“With the customer demand as you know, as the years go on, we’re seeing more and more online shopping, and we definitely see that happening here with increased orders each and every year,” said Morales.
Erika Morales is the operations manager for the Amazon delivery station in Cleveland.
She said This station sees tens of thousands of packages every day. They have hired about 250 more employees to help sort, pack and ship out packages for the holiday season.
“Between 50 to 100,000. Today we’re looking at about 70,000. And then, in the next couple of weeks, we’re going to have even more,” said Morales.
In 2024, more than 78 million items were sold by Ohio independent sellers. Most of them are small to medium businesses.
“Any sales today will continue to carry on through the rest of the month, the rest of the season, making sure everybody gets their holiday packages,” said Morales.
Brown drops his products at one of the 17 fulfillment centers in Ohio so they can be brought to one of the 18 delivery stations like this one. He said it’s surreal to see how those products make it out to shoppers.
“Looking at these boxes knowing that I’ve got products being delivered to customers today,” said Brown. “This is beyond cool.”
