Amazon today opened a physical bond bazaar in the City of London, where institutional investors queue with forklifts to load pallets of sterling-denominated paper directly from a warehouse styled after its fulfilment centres. The company hired six banks to run the sale, but insisted that all orders be collected in person, with each fund manager issued a numbered vest and a mandatory safety briefing before entering the trading floor.
«We have always believed that shopping for debt should feel like shopping for a toaster,» said a spokesperson for Amazon's treasury division, standing beside a conveyor belt that carried freshly printed bond certificates toward a loading bay. Pension funds from across Britain have dispatched dedicated couriers to stand in line, some arriving as early as 4 a.m. with thermoses and folding chairs, while others have rented nearby office space to house the temporary staff required to carry their purchases back to their vaults.
The bazaar, which occupies a former sorting depot in Bermondsey, features separate aisles for different maturities, with five-year notes stacked next to ten-year bonds and a clearance section for shorter-dated paper. Amazon has also introduced a Prime-style loyalty scheme, offering priority queue access to funds that agree to hold their bonds for at least a decade. «We are seeing unprecedented demand for sterling,» the spokesperson added, gesturing toward a digital ticker that displayed the number of pallets loaded so far. «Next week we plan to open a drive-through window for smaller investors.»