Amazon is proving its dominance in the UK ecommerce market after new research has been revealed that it has acquired some new warehouse space, five times more than its closest rival this year. According to the property company Savills, the Seattle-based online retail giant increased its warehouse space in the UK by four million square feet in 2017.
The next retailer on the list is German discount grocer Lidl, which only increased its warehouse space by 754,000 square feet
Amazon now has 19.7 million square feet of warehousing space in the UK and its land grab in 2017 accounts for 20 per cent of that total.
Savills research director Kevin Mofid said the level of growth was “unprecedented, you had a point about 10 years ago when the grocers – Tesco, Sainsbury’s and so on – were very active, and they took a lot of space, but it was nowhere near this level"
The news comes a week after allegations emerged that Amazon warehouse staff endured tough working conditions for minimal pay.
According to the Sunday Mirror, staff at the retailer’s Tilbury warehouse in Essex, allegedly had exhausting working conditions and were forced to work overtime, and also had difficult targets – which included packing at least two items per minute or 200 items per hour.
Amazon has since argued against the allegations, saying that staff can refuse to do overtime if they need too, and that workers who didn’t meet their targets were still given support and training to help them improve.
The warehouse was also up to speed with health and safety workplace law and nothing illegal was uncovered during the five weeks the Mirror spent there as part of its investigation.
