Inside Amazon’s Very Hot Warehouse

Amazon.com did not create the notion of buying things online, but it has done more than any other retailer to move the experience into the mainstream. It has exceeded its customers’ expectations so often it must constantly struggle to top itself. “At first people were incredulous that the mouse on their computer was connected to their doorbell,” the Amazon executive Russell Grandinetti said recently. “Now they say: ‘It’s been 12 hours. Where’s my stuff?’ ”

All that stuff doesn’t magically fly to your house, even if the goal is to have it seem that way.