Amazon adds East Coast customer service center
The online retailer announces that it is opening a new customer service center in Huntington, W.Va., its first on the East Coast.
The new center, which will open in April, will be the company's first on the East Coast and its seventh overall. Amazon already operates customer service centers in Seattle; Tacoma, Wash.; Grand Forks, N.D.; Slough, England; Regensberg, Germany; and the Hague, Netherlands.
The growth of Amazon's customer service operations parallels the expansion of its distribution centers. Over the last year--as Amazon has ventured into electronics, toys, home improvement products and software--the company opened five new distribution centers.
A company representative did not know how many people would work at the new facility.
Amazon.com.wvcs, a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon, will own and operate the new Huntington facility--an arrangement similar to the set up of its other customer service and distribution centers.
Because Amazon will not directly own the center, it will not charge sales tax to its West Virginia customers. Under sales tax laws, a company typically is required to charge sales tax only when it has a substantial physical presence in a particular state.
The representative said that Amazon only charges sales tax to customers based in Washington.