Anne Doughty, a 51-year-old geography teacher,  places same day order on Amazon website from her home in Garforth, West Yorkshire.

Monday, 8.40am, Garforth, West Yorkshire

Anne Doughty, 51, a geography teacher who lives with her family in this dormitory village near Leeds, goes online to find a cheap camera for her holiday. She says the internet is invaluable for household items, books and presents. 'Everything is there in one place. However, I'd never buy clothes online — you can't try them on.'

Ann Doughty's order is received at the Amazon Fulfilment centre in Manchester where a robot locates her camera in a yellow 'pod' and bring to 'picker' staff

8.49am
Anne identifies on Amazon an Aberg Best 21 megapixels camera, which can be delivered the same day. She's impressed by the price — £38 — and as a Prime customer, there's no delivery fee. She clicks and buys.

8.49am, MAN1, Altrincham, Gtr Manchester
Sixty-five miles away from Anne's home in Garforth is MAN1, one of Amazon's 17 giant UK warehouses, or 'fulfilment centres' as the company calls them. Each is named after the nearest airport. MAN1 is a few hundred yards from Manchester Airport.

8.50am, MAN1
The camera is located in the middle of the warehouse on the second floor — in a 'pod', Amazon's word for a four-sided fabric storage unit. There are more than 10,000 pods closely packed together.

10.31am

'Picker' Fatima Mohamed,18, takes the order from the pod and scans and place it into a black bin for packaging.

10.33am
The camera in the tote is trundling along a conveyor belt towards the parking area. With it is a copy of Gail Honeyman's bestseller Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and some probiotic pills.

10.38am
The tote arrives at the packing station of Graeme Nicolson, 58, who used to run leisure centers.

10.42am

Orders are scanned and labelled with the delivery address at this machine.

2.17pm
The camera has been sitting in the DLS2 Gaylord for a short time. But at every stage, its barcode has been scanned to ensure it's on time and going to the right place.

3.52pm
The lorry arrives at DLS2, the Amazon delivery station near junction 45 of the M1, on the outskirts of Leeds. A far smaller building than the Manchester fulfilment centre, it is one storey high and about 240ft long. The gaylord is unloaded from the HGV.

4.07pm

Operations associate Hassan Khan sorts parcels into delivery districts for delivery drivers at the Leeds based delivery station, West Yorkshire.

5.07pm

Delivery driver Alex Rabone,28, picks up his orders together with mrs Doughtys and loads van at the Amazon Delivery station, Leeds.

5.39pm

Alex Rabone,28, delivers Mrs Doughtys order to her home in Garforth, West Yorkshire.

5.41pm

Anne opens the package in her kitchen and is impressed at how lightweight and 'dinky' the camera is. 'I do worry about the High Street, but Amazon is so useful,' she says. And cheap.

One thing is certain, however. With robots helping Amazon to ship parcels within nine hours of them being ordered, the millions that we spend online every week are only going to increase.

Warehouse to front door in lightning-fast time: Amazon's amazing delivery methods explained.