Fulfillment centers benefit as Miami sees boom in e-commerce business

In the last five years, the world of buying and selling products online has gone to new heights in the US. E-Commerce has brought in more than $350 billion dollars. Miami is one of the cities that has been riding the coattails of this booming success.

In Sweetwater, lies a 10,000 sq.ft. warehouse called Palletized eHub. Inside you will find the owner and CEO, Maximiliano Trujillo who explained that his team provides the gap between when a consumer clicks and order on a retailer’s website and when it get to the consumer’s doorsteps.

Palletized Miami is an e-commerce fulfillment center, which . It’s in a center like Palletized Miami where you’ll find products sold online. The fulfillment center will pick products, pack them, and send them straight to consumers.
Palletized eHub employs 40 people and serve roughly 80 businesses South Florida to countries overseas.
“We have about 45% of our partners that are from abroad, so either from Latin America or European countries. And then the rest are local companies that they either want to try to grow and scale their business from their garage or their own stores to a fulfillment center, or actually reduce their overheads and then come to a fulfillment center,” Trujillo explained.
Trujillo said scalability and flexibility are the two main reasons why small business owners go to a fulfillment center. Trujillo added that companies that might be working out of their home or office may be capped on how much they can grow in their space to meet demand. He said a fulfillment center can house their products, and the company doesn’t have to worry about spending additional money on buying or renting a warehouse.

Another appealing feature for small business owners: a fulfillment center does all the hard work for them. They even handle returns. This allows for the company to focus on the product, branding, and operating your business.

The service comes at a cost, typically anywhere from $5-$15 a pallet. Palletized eHub has its own calculator where a company can determine the costs of obtaining its services, versus trying to do those same functions in house.

Trujillo said AI and other technology can help lower cost for them and the consumer.

“Obviously, with the high increases of labor, highest increases on warehouse spaces, we need to be as much efficient as possible because it’s a matter of cents, Trujillo said. “It’s a very delicate situation right now that we need to be as most productive and as most efficient as possible.”

While workers utilize AI to help speed up the process and check their work, Trujillo doesn’t believe the e-commerce work will be replaced by non-humans.

“At the end of the day, what we do, it’s going to depend on humans. I don’t know if forever, but at least for the upcoming future, it is,” explained Trujillo.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, this field of work is projected to grow with more than 1 million job openings annually. Hand laborers, material movers, and order fillers could see the biggest jump.

So, as more businesses move and flourish in the 305, it’s expected centers like Palletized eHub will be right there to help.