April 3, 2020
Categories:
Corporate & Supply Chain
Yiannis Tsiounis
7 minute read

Amazon warehouse traffic illustrates importance of retailer

Average daily traffic to Amazon warehouses spiked dramatically in March as the retailer ramped up its staff. Average
daily traffic in March was up 43% compared to year earlier, far outstripping seasonal staffing increases.


In the first few days of April the number of Amazon employees seen at their warehouses has continued to grow, as demand
for home delivery surges, with increasing numbers of people following strict orders from local authorities to stay home.


Advan: Amazon Warehouse Employees


Historically, based on Advan's analysis, the number of employees seen at Amazon warehouses has a strong correlation -
approximately 0.85 - with company revenues.


Advan also tracked truck traffic for Amazon across the US. This measure shows a slight increase in delivery traffic, but
not as pronounced as the increase in employees. This may reflect a reduction in the number of available drivers, or the
Amazon's ability to efficiently consolidate deliveries in order to keep up with demand.


Advan: Amazon Warehouse Trucks


The coming days will be critical for the retailers as it navigates the difficult line between fulfilling the essential
duty of delivering products to customers staying home, and protecting its employees from the COVID-19 virus through
distancing measures within the workplace.

Yiannis Tsiounis

Yiannis has been Executive Chairman since founding the company. Previously, he founded and led BQuotes, a fixed income price discovery platform acquired by Moody’s in 2008. Earlier in his career, he was a Partner at Etolian Capital, a fixed income hedge fund. Yiannis holds a Ph.D. in Cryptography, with a thesis in Anonymous Electronic Cash, as well as a Master’s in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s in Mathematics. He has published 14 peer-refereed papers in Cryptography and Privacy and has been an invited speaker at MIT, NIST, RSA, Sandia National Laboratories, and École Normale Supérieure, among others.