The layoffs did not seem to disrupt the development of the e-commerce giant. On April 15, the opening ceremony of Amazon’s global smart hub warehouse was held in Shenzhen as scheduled. Amazon’s global smart hub warehouse (English abbreviation “GWD”) was officially opened to sellers.
As an important step in the implementation of Amazon’s “next generation cross-border chain” strategy for global stores, Amazon’s global smart hub is a one-stop batch warehousing and distribution service site established by Amazon in the source of goods, covering services such as warehousing, customs clearance, cross-border transportation and inventory allocation.
It seamlessly connects to the global Amazon logistics network and builds an intelligent and efficient logistics channel for sellers “from local warehouses directly to global customers.”
It is reported that the Shenzhen GWD warehouse supports shipments to the Amazon US station operation center.
Amazon also announced that in the future, GWD will expand to the Yangtze River Delta region and will support shipments to Amazon’s operation centers in Europe and Japan, further helping sellers achieve flexible and efficient global distribution and replenishment.
The relevant person in charge of Amazon China said that at the Amazon Global Store Cross-Border Summit held in Hangzhou last year, the “next generation cross-border chain” strategy was proposed, aiming to break geographical boundaries and operational restrictions, allowing sellers to sell globally from the first day.
Now, with the official opening of Amazon’s global smart hub warehouse in Shenzhen, this vision is gradually coming to fruition.
The world’s first Amazon global smart hub warehouse, which was officially opened to Chinese sellers on April 15, is located in the Yantian Port Logistics Park. It gradually helps sellers achieve “one inventory pool to supply the world” by integrating warehousing, customs clearance, cross-border transportation, etc., empowering sellers to achieve global business expansion at lower costs and with higher efficiency.
A visit to the warehouse that afternoon revealed that from the outside, it was not significantly different from an ordinary warehouse.
However, on-site staff said that the application of various intelligent technologies has given traditional warehouses a “smart brain.”
The intelligent warehouse management system located at the entrance of the warehouse can realize real-time monitoring, accurate inventory and intelligent scheduling of inventory. Sellers can monitor inventory dynamics in real time through the backend and flexibly adjust distribution plans according to the sales situation of various sites around the world to avoid inventory backlogs or out-of-stock situations.
When goods arrive at the warehouse, they need to pass through an automatic conveyor belt and pass through a smart door to complete acceptance and sorting before being put on shelves for storage.
Smart doors that apply radio frequency identification technology seem to have “fierce eyes” and can accurately identify the characteristics and storage needs of goods in real time, and send them to different sorting tracks.
The intelligent sorting and shelving process not only improves the efficiency of goods processing, but also reduces the risk of errors and omissions caused by manual operations, further optimizing the operational experience of the logistics process.
Behind the opening of Amazon’s global smart hub warehouse to welcome customers is the increasingly fierce industry competition.
For cross-border sellers, global expansion is often accompanied by high trial and error costs and complex operational challenges.
Under the traditional model, if sellers want to enter new markets and test new products, they usually need to send a certain amount of inventory to overseas warehouses in the destination country in advance. This not only takes up a lot of working capital, but may also face the risk of slow sales and cost losses.
Moreover, the cross-border logistics chain is long and involves multiple links, making it difficult for sellers to manage it.
In order to solve the pain points of these industries, various companies are secretly competing.
Recently, TikTok Shop launched the “local hosting” model, and Cainiao Overseas Warehouse provides a number of benefits as a cooperative docking warehouse.
Temu, which was officially launched only 4 years ago, has risen rapidly and has become a popular cross-border e-commerce platform in many countries and regions.
While its peers are rising strongly, Amazon is facing the pain of “layoffs”.
But in February this year, Amazon announced that capital expenditures would surge to approximately US$200 billion in 2026, mainly for the construction of AI data centers, self-developed chip research and development, and logistics infrastructure upgrades.
“Domestic warehousing and global sales” is an important selling point of Amazon’s global smart hub warehouse. It has changed the traditional cross-border logistics model and created a one-stop global warehousing and distribution service for the source of goods. In the future, a unified inventory pool will be used to schedule and match the needs of different sites. This is also Amazon’s core competitiveness in the field of cross-border e-commerce.
