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A sketchbook explainer · 4 min

How does Amazon delivery work?

Explained for ages 8–12

Now you know how one box gets to your door!

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Your turn

Run the delivery yourself

Play with the boxes!

Each lab is one step of the box's trip. Slide, tap and sort, and see what changes.

Each lab isolates one idea. The models are simplified teaching sketches, not Amazon's real systems or data.

Tap the buttons and slide the sliders.

1

How far away is the book?

Distance sets the delivery time

Near or far?

Slide the warehouse closer to Maya's house or farther away. When can the box arrive?

Drag the starting warehouse from a nearby fulfillment center to across the country and compare delivery times.

Slide the big building near and far. When does the box come?

A teaching model, not real delivery promises: the farther the starting warehouse, the more days on the road. Real times also depend on flights, cut-off times and the route.

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2

Guess what people will buy

Forecasting by season and region

Pick a season. Which town gets the most stock, and why?

Change the season and watch the forecast shift stock between regions.

The bars and stock piles are illustrations, not real Amazon data. Examples (sunscreen, ski goggles) are the ones Amazon gives.

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3

Walk, or bring the shelf?

Goods to person

The robot helper

Make the worker walk to a far shelf. Then let a robot bring a pod instead. Which saves more steps?

Compare person-to-goods (walking the aisles) with goods-to-person (robots carry pods to a fixed station).

Tap the robot button. Watch it bring the yellow shelf!

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4

Sort the parcels

Sort by route

Which bag?

Look at the coloured dot on the parcel at the end of the belt. Drop it into the matching van bag.

Each colour stands for a delivery route. Route-level sorting is what lets a driver load one set of bags and go.

Look at the dot on the box. Tap the bag with the same colour!

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5

Plan the van route

A small traveling salesman problem

Drive to every house

Tap the houses in the order you would drive, starting from the station. Then show the best route. How close did you get?

Sequence 7 stops by hand, then compare with the exact shortest route (found by checking all 5,040 orders).

Tap each little house on the map, one by one.

Route length here is straight-line distance on the map. Real routing also counts roads, turns, traffic and time windows.

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6

Every day, or one day a week?

Consolidating deliveries

Lots of trips or one?

Switch between a box every day and one delivery day a week. How many van trips come to your street?

Compare daily deliveries with one consolidated delivery day for one household.

Tap the buttons. How many vans come?

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How does a box get to your door?

At night, Maya picks a new book on the computer. In the morning, the box is at her door. Here is how.

It was already close

The book was waiting in a giant building near Maya's town. It did not have to come from far away. That is the big secret!

Robots bring the shelf

Inside the giant building, little robots carry tall yellow shelves to the helpers. A helper takes out the book and puts it in a box. A machine sticks on a label.

Sorting

The box rides on a moving belt and then on a big truck. Helpers put each box in the right bag. There is one bag for each van.

The van

In the morning, the driver fills the van. A phone shows the way to every house. At Maya's door, the driver puts down the box and takes a picture.

Did you know? In the big building, the shelves come to the people. The people don't have to walk to the shelves!

← More explainers

This page explains how the delivery system works in general. Numbers about Amazon's own network are the company's figures, with the year they were reported. Ahaboo is independent and isn't affiliated with Amazon.

How does Amazon delivery work? The short answer

Amazon delivery is a relay. A package moves from a fulfillment center (where it is picked and packed), usually to a sort center (where it is sorted by ZIP code), then to a delivery station (where it is sorted by van route), and finally onto a van or car for the last mile to your door or a locker.1

The surprising part is when most of the work happens. Much of the speed comes before you even click "buy": Amazon forecasts what people in each area will want and stores those items in warehouses near them.24 A box that only has to travel a short distance can arrive the next morning.

  1. Forecast and place: stock is moved near likely buyers in advance.
  2. Pick and pack: robots bring shelves to workers; the item is packed and labeled.
  3. Sort, twice: by ZIP code at a sort center, then by route at a delivery station.
  4. The last mile: a driver follows a computer-planned route and photographs the drop-off.

How does Amazon deliver so fast?

Mostly by shrinking the distance. In 2023 Amazon split its U.S. network into eight regions, each with a broad stock of products. It said that more than 76% of the orders it filled came from inside the customer's own region, and that the average distance from its sites to customers had fallen 15% that year, with 12% fewer handoffs in the middle of the trip.2

To decide what goes where, Amazon uses machine-learning forecasts. Its 2025 model adds weather and holiday schedules to past sales, and the company's own examples are sunscreen on Cape Cod in summer and ski goggles in Boulder during ski season.4

Amazon says its speed gains "come primarily from placing products closer to customers," and that the people who pick, pack and drive do the same work for next-day orders as for orders that used to take two days or more.23 In 2025 it reported more than 13 billion items delivered the same or next day worldwide, including more than 8 billion to U.S. Prime members.3

How do Amazon warehouses work?

In a robotic fulfillment center, items are stored in coded bins inside tall shelving units called pods. Small, flat robots navigate by 2D barcodes on the floor, slide under a pod, lift it and carry it to a worker at a fixed station.67 This idea is called goods to person: instead of people walking the aisles, the shelves come to them. Pods can weigh up to 1,000 pounds, and because only robots enter the storage area, pods can be packed tightly, with popular ones parked close to the stations.7

The idea came from Kiva Systems, whose founder wanted to save workers "a lot of running back and forth" by having robots bring the shelves. Amazon bought Kiva in 2012 for $775 million, and it became Amazon Robotics.89 Amazon says it has deployed more than a million robots since then.10

StepWhat happens
StowNew stock is placed into coded pod bins; the system logs exactly where each item is.6
PickA robot brings the pod; a light shows the bin; the worker picks and checks the item and puts it in a yellow tote.6
PackThe system suggests a box size from the item's dimensions; tape machines dispense just enough tape.6
SLAMScan, label, apply, manifest: the box is scanned and weighed, and a printed label is blown on with a puff of air.6
ShipA scanner reads the label and sends the box down the chute to its truck; trucks are packed floor to ceiling.6

What happens at a sort center and a delivery station?

Each truck carries more than 2,000 boxes, according to Amazon. Some packages fly on Amazon Air. At a sort center, packages from many places are sorted by ZIP code and sent on to delivery stations or partners such as the U.S. Post Office.1 Robots like Pegasus carry parcels to the right chute by ZIP code or delivery route.7

At a delivery station, workers sort packages into bags by van route, and the bags are loaded into vans route by route.11 A typical delivery van holds about 350 packages.12

Who delivers Amazon packages?

Many are delivered by drivers working for Delivery Service Partners (DSPs), small companies that run delivery vans for Amazon. Amazon said in 2024 there were more than 390,000 DSP drivers worldwide.14 Others go through Amazon Flex, where independent drivers use their own vehicles and pick delivery blocks; their routes account for package count, locations, and past weather and traffic.15 Drivers load out at the station in the morning, and their phone shows every stop in order.13

Why is the last mile the hardest part?

The last mile is the final leg from a local hub to your door. It's the shortest part of the trip but the most expensive: it's often estimated at around 53% of total shipping cost, because each van makes many separate small stops.1819

Choosing the order of the stops is a version of the traveling salesman problem: find the shortest path that visits every stop once. The only known method that is guaranteed to find the very shortest route takes time that grows exponentially with the number of stops.16 Even 10 stops can be visited in 3,628,800 different orders. So routing software searches for a very good route quickly, and real routes also need what experienced drivers know, like a tricky driveway or a building entrance; MIT's Center for Transportation & Logistics and Amazon ran a research challenge on exactly that gap.17 At the door, the driver takes a proof-of-delivery photo.4

How does Amazon same-day delivery work?

Same-day orders come from smaller buildings close to big metro areas. They are part fulfillment center and part delivery station, so an item can be picked, sorted and put on a van from one site.25 Amazon says Same-Day Delivery reached more than 9,000 U.S. cities and towns in 2025.3 In 2026 it began delivering some groceries and essentials in about 30 minutes from small sites in some U.S. cities.23

What does fast delivery cost?

Speed isn't free. More fast deliveries mean more vans and more trips: New York City's comptroller reported that packages delivered in the city each day rose from 1.1 million in 2017 to 2.5 million in 2024, and that traffic crashes rose near last-mile facilities.22 In 2024 a U.S. Senate committee staff report said Amazon's own studies linked the pace of warehouse work to injuries; Amazon said earlier findings in the investigation were wrong and misleading.2021 On the other side, placing stock closer to people cuts the miles each package travels, which Amazon says reduces traffic and emissions.4 Choosing one delivery day a week (Amazon Day) bundles orders into fewer trips.24

Common misconceptions

"It's fast because everyone rushes." Amazon says its speed comes mainly from where products already sit, not from people working faster.2
"My box crossed the country overnight." Usually it started in a fulfillment center in your own region.2
"Robots do everything." Robots carry shelves and sort parcels, but people still pick, check, pack, load and drive.67
"The long-distance part is the expensive part." The last mile, the shortest leg, costs the most.18
"Finding the shortest route is easy for a computer." It's a famously hard problem; good routes come from fast search plus drivers' local knowledge.1617

Keep exploring

The van's map runs on satellites: see how GPS works. Your order travels as data first, over the internet, and the forecasts are a kind of AI. The robots and scanners are run by computers, and many delivery vans now run on batteries.

FAQ

How does Amazon deliver so fast?

Mostly by storing items close to you before you order. Amazon forecasts what people in each area will buy and places that stock in nearby warehouses, so many orders travel a much shorter distance than they would from a faraway warehouse. Amazon says its speed gains come mainly from this placement, not from people working faster. Robots that bring shelves to workers, sorting and software-planned van routes also help.

What is an Amazon fulfillment center?

A large warehouse where products are stored, picked, packed and labeled. In many of them, small robots carry tall shelving units called pods to workers at fixed stations. The worker picks the item, it's packed in a right-sized box, labeled, and sent down a chute to a truck.

How does delivering for Amazon work?

Many packages are delivered by drivers who work for Delivery Service Partners, small companies that run fleets of vans for Amazon. Others are delivered through Amazon Flex, where independent drivers use their own cars and pick delivery blocks in an app. Some packages are handed to partners such as the U.S. Post Office for the last leg.

How does Amazon same-day delivery work?

Many same-day orders are filled from smaller sites close to customers, often near big metro areas. They work like a fulfillment center and a delivery station in one building, so items can be picked, sorted and put on a van within hours. Amazon says Same-Day Delivery reached more than 9,000 U.S. cities and towns in 2025.

What does "out for delivery" mean on Amazon?

It usually means your package has left the delivery station and is with a driver on today's route. The driver's device sequences all the stops, so the time it arrives depends on where your stop falls in the route.

Why is my Amazon package sometimes slow?

Fast delivery is easiest when the item is already stocked in a warehouse in your region. If it isn't, the package may have to travel farther and pass through more facilities. Very busy periods and the route your stop falls on also change the arrival time.

Did this help it click?

Sources

  1. Amazon, "How does your Amazon order get to your doorstep?" (2022)
  2. Amazon, D. Herrington, regionalizing the U.S. network (2023)
  3. Amazon, "Amazon sets new Prime delivery speed record in 2025" (2026)
  4. Amazon, AI demand forecasting and Wellspring mapping (2025)
  5. Amazon, D. Herrington, 2024 delivery updates (Same-Day sites)
  6. Amazon, inside a fulfillment center: photo tour (2023)
  7. Amazon Science, "Amazon's tiny robot drives do the heavy lifting" (2022)
  8. Wikipedia, Amazon Robotics (Kiva Systems)
  9. M. Mountz, "Kiva the Disrupter", Harvard Business Review (2012)
  10. Amazon, the robots inside fulfillment centers
  11. Amazon, Vision Assisted Sort Station at delivery stations (2025)
  12. Amazon, a driver's van tour (2023)
  13. Amazon, a delivery driver's day (2023)
  14. Amazon, VAPR in delivery vans (2024)
  15. Amazon, the Amazon Flex program (2025)
  16. Britannica, traveling salesman problem
  17. MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, Amazon Last Mile Routing Research Challenge (2021)
  18. Maersk, Last-mile delivery (2025, citing Statista)
  19. Wikipedia, Last mile (transportation)
  20. AP News, Senate report on Amazon warehouse safety (Dec. 2024)
  21. KBIA, Senate interim report and Amazon's response (2024)
  22. NYC Comptroller, "Fast Shipping. Slow Justice." (2025)
  23. Fox Business, Amazon Now 30-minute delivery (2026)
  24. Amazon EU, Prime Day 2025 (Amazon Day delivery)