A peek inside Amazon’s huge warehouse in Singapore, and more on Prime Now’s launch

Amazon’s new fulfillment center in Singapore. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Amazon officially unveiled its Prime Now service in Singapore today, following months of rumors. Its mobile app has been available for download in the country since yesterday.

The launch took place at Amazon’s new 100,000-square-foot fulfillment center – nearly the size of two football fields – in Jurong East.

The sorting area where Prime Now orders are checked and dispatched. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Amazon Prime Now is the US giant’s first retail service to launch in the city-state, offering free two-hour delivery of a limited range of products from its online store. Singaporeans will be able to order everyday items, books, and groceries, among other things – including 1,100 items from the company’s in-house brand AmazonBasics.

This ought to be popular – chilled beers delivered straight to your door, within two hours. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Prime Now first became available in New York back in December 2014. Since then, it has been launched in over 50 cities across nine countries.

However, the service will operate on a different model in Singapore, the company says. It will rely more heavily on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Novel logistics processes such as on-demand delivery scheduling and random stow systems – which locates stock in a warehouse according to order frequency – have been adopted in an effort to drive greater efficiencies.

To bring Prime Now to a country where it had previously lacked an operational presence required Amazon to work closely with local authorities. Kiren Kumar, assistant managing director of the Singapore Economic Development Board who was present at the event, told Tech in Asia that his agency has been working with the US company for quite some time to lay the groundwork for Prime Now’s rollout.

“To deliver within two hours, there’s a lot of innovation that needs to happen beyond what you see here… in terms of infrastructure,” he said. “We had to work closely with [Amazon] to navigate the Singapore government machinery, to ensure compliance with our LTA [Land Transport Authority] from a traffic and signaling perspective, and our Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority in terms of classifying food safety.”

The fulfillment center covers 100,000 square feet. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.