In an effort to get ship more orders to more customers throughout the central and southern regions in the U.S., Macy’s announced plans to build a new $170 million direct-to-consumer fulfillment center in Tulsa County, OK.
Construction of the 1.3 million-square-foot facility is expected to begin in spring with an anticipated operational start in April 2015. If all goes smoothly with the construction, Macy’s said the first orders should ship in the summer of 2015.
According to the release, Macy’s said when the facility becomes fully operational it is expected to employ 1,500 full- and part-time employees throughout the year. During the holiday shopping season, Macy’s is predicting that an additional 1,000 seasonal hires are expected “to handle a significantly higher level of online orders.”
“Customers today are shopping whenever, however and wherever they prefer – via stores, desktops and mobile devices – and we continue to invest to meet the customer demand,” said Terry J. Lundgren, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Macy’s, in the release.
To date, there are roughly 500 traditional brick-and-mortar Macy’s stores working double duty as a store and fulfillment centers, and three major fulfillment centers across the country. Currently, all the direct-to-customer orders coming from macys.com, the Macy’s app and Macy’s stores, are currently fulfilled by either a Macy’s fulfillment center in Arizona, Tennessee or as well one of the 500 fulfillment capable stores.
Macy’s also owns and operates Bloomingdales, so all of the direct-to-customer orders coming from bloomingdales.com, Bloomingdale’s app and Bloomingdale’s stores are handled primarily by a fulfillment center in either one of the 37 Bloomingdales stores or a fulfillment center in Connecticut, according to the release.
“We have rolled out fulfillment capability to 500 Macy’s stores nationwide, as well as built three major fulfillment centers over the past seven years. Our new Tulsa County facility will represent another significant expansion of our shipping capacity, particularly to customers in central and southern regions of the United States,” Lundgren said in the release.
Erin Lynch is the senior content producer at Multichannel Merchant. Erin can be reached (203)899-8461 or connect with her socially on Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.