Black Friday: Britain's largest Amazon distribution centre in Scotland prepares for big day and Christmas

Home gadgets, gardening tools, and furniture are some of the many items that will be packaged at Britain's largest Amazon distribution centre for Black Friday. Corresponding with the run-up to Christmas, a depot the size of 17 football pitches with four miles of conveyor belts will be a hub of activity over the coming weeks.

The site in Dunfermline in Scotland opened in 2011 and stretches over 1.5 million square feet. More than 1,000 seasonal workers will join the existing 1,200 staff to deal with orders over the Black Friday sale and Christmas shopping season.

The Amazon fulfilment centre is called EDI4 internally – named after Edinburgh International Airport. It has 5,900 modular solar panels which generate the equivalent amount of electricity required to power over 320 homes for one year.

Behind-the-scenes pictures show rows upon rows of gifts, stacked high on shelves, as staff collect items for orders to be packed into the company's signature boxes.

Staff can be seen passing boxes along four miles of conveyor belts and moving orders from one area to another for processing, gift wrapping, and labelling, before packages are shipped straight to customers' doors.

Despite being an American tradition, Amazon has brought Black Friday deals to the UK since 2010 - and Brits can't get enough of the deals. As Black Friday approaches (November 24), families throughout the UK scramble to buy their gifts early - with figures from 2021 showing a whopping 5.5 million orders over the 24-hour Black Friday period.

An Amazon spokesperson said: "Black Friday Week is here, with new deals going live every day from Friday 17th November until 11.59pm on 27th November, and millions of pounds of customer savings available," said an Amazon spokesperson.

"The shopping event will include Amazon's best prices of the year so far on must-have brands, as well as great deals on a wide selection of products from small businesses across the UK."

Since 2010 Amazon has invested over £3.1 billion in Scotland.