BLACK FRIDAY is a happy Friday for materials handling. Black Friday/Cyber Monday was, as usual, indicators of the crucial role of materials handling in retail, wholesale and distribution, with record throughput at many DCs and warehouses. Black Friday started in the mid-1960s as a post-Thanksgiving sale in the US and has grown worldwide to a shopping day filled with shopping deals both online and in-store. Many retailers offer special discounts and sales. It’s also important to note Cyber Monday. In terms of online sales volume, Cyber Monday was worth 10.8B in 2020, which was actually more than Black Friday. Amazon was the third most searched site for consumers looking for Cyber Monday deals.
We thought you may be interested in Amazon’s massive product selection and warehouses. Their chaotic organization is a basic “put it where it fits” system. Finding a box of golf balls inside a 1.2 million sq ft warehouse might seem like a needle in a haystack, but the system works extremely well for Amazon. Another impressive retail store in the Cyber Monday scene is Target. Target was actually searched more than Amazon for Cyber Monday deals! Even more impressive is Target’s giant warehouse in Lacey, Washington. This two million sq. ft. warehouse is actually the second-largest usable space building in the world. This warehouse dwarves the Amazon warehouses.