Tag Archives: Amazon

Amazon hiring in Southern California

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The opening of the Amazon facility at the former Norton Air Force Base has proven to be a boon for the city of San Bernardino, which is reeling from a recent bankruptcy filing and workforce layoffs.

The facility, which was completed Oct. 1, handles shipments of products purchased online. City leaders hope that the tax on sales will help turn the city around since California law allows Amazon to designate which city is a “point of sale” for sales tax purposes, thus allowing San Bernardino to pocket 1 cent on the dollar for all sales processed through the center.

The wages are also a big plus, averaging about 30 percent higher than most traditional retail work. Those interested in working for Amazon, can apply online.

Amazon to build two fulfillment centers in California

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An Amazon.com worker at a fulfillment center

Amazon.com Inc. plans to open two new fulfillment centers in California over the next year, a move in response to an online sales tax deal between the online retailer and the state of California.

The move comes after California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law in September requiring large online retailers to begin collecting sales tax from state residents next year. Amazon won a postponement of the sales-tax collection requirement until next year after promising to build warehouses in the state, which will create at least 10,000 new full-time jobs and 25,000 seasonal jobs by the end of 2015.

As early as this fall, Amazon plans to take over a 950,000 square-foot facility in San Bernardino, in Southern California. Additionally, Amazon plans to open a 1-milion-square-foot fulfillment center in Patterson, just east of the San Francisco Bay area. That facility should open in the second quarter of 2013.

By the end of the second quarter of 2012 Amazon will create “hundreds of full time jobs with benefits” in Patterson, California, said Dave Clark, Amazon vice president, global customer fulfillment.

We appreciate USAA Real Estate Company’s hard work, the support from Governor Brown and state and local officials, and we look forward to creating hundreds of full time jobs with benefits in Patterson when the facility begins shipping to customers in 2013.

The two new fulfillment centers apparently represent only the initial warehouse moves by Amazon in California, coming as they do on the heels of a 34% sales increase in the first quarter for the online retail giant.

Kindle Fire taking over Android tablet market

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The Kindle Fire is burning up the tablet competition — on the Android side.

Amazon.com Inc.’s tablet computer is catching fire on in a big way, having grabbed 54.4% of the Android tablet market during February, the fourth month it was on the market, according to new data from comScore Inc. That represented almost double of the Fire’s Android market share since December.

The Kindle Fire is in warp drive — far outpacing Samsung’s Galaxy Tab (15.4% of Android), Motorola Xoom (7%), the Asus Transformer (6.3%) and others by Dell, Lenovo and Sony.

But the tablet market leader remains Apple’s iPad, which, according to the market research firm IDC, owned about 55% of the tablet market at the end of 2011. Android tablets accounted for about 45%.  This is all great news for Amazon, meaning about 30% of tablets currently shipping are Kindle Fires, making the Fire a close second to the iPad.

Despite efforts by Apple, dismissing the Fire is increasingly difficult to do so. In February, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook dismissed tablets like the Kindle Fire as inferior:

A cheap prod­uct might sell some units … But then [consumers] get it home and use it and the joy is gone. And the joy is gone ev­ery day that they use it and they wind up not us­ing it anymore.

No one knows for sure how much use the Kinde Fire is getting, but consumers certainly are buying it.