A warehouse picker who never gets tired? The online retailer JD.com has just the thing. The company has opened a huge facility in Shanghai where items are picked from shelves, packed up and sent to distribution points by machines and machines alone.

A warehouse of a similar size might have employed 500 people in the past – but for one section of this depot, just one person is needed to oversee mechanical operations.

All of this helps to shift some of the 3 million orders JD.com processes each year. Plus, the company is now developing prototype delivery drones like its US rival Amazon, cutting out the need for human delivery staff as well.

The company’s record delivery time is just four minutes.

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