It could be likened to a modern-day version of Santa’s workshop.

The Dartford Amazon warehouse – or fulfilment centre as the conglomerate likes to call it – is the largest in Europe, and will see hundreds of millions of parcels fly in and out over the next five weeks as we enter the festive season.

It employs 2,500 people and tens of thousands of robots, with the aim of having parcels out for delivery within two hours from the moment you click purchase on the website.

Simply put, this is where the Christmas wishes of countless people will come true – as long as they get it right.

It’s a big task to take on but while many would fold under the pressure, Amazon bosses are keen to flex their guns and brains so invited me on a tour to follow the life of a parcel as it comes in and out of the site.

They also offer me the chance to ask about some of the concerns many have about the business, including it muscling in on high street trade and replacing humans with robots.

Two thousand Kent businesses – and 100,000 firms across the country – use this site as a middleman to sell to customers, but has online shopping forced them out of town centres and into more virtual territories?

Site manager John McEwen prefers to take a different stance and speaks passionately about the opportunities online shopping can afford small to medium-sized businesses.

“As a customer, sometimes I like to shop online and sometimes I like to shop in person and that hasn't changed, a large majority of shopping still happens in person,” said the Amazon worker of 10 years.

“It's giving an opportunity to these small and medium-sized businesses that have only ever been on the high street to actually open up their inventory to everyone in the UK and even the world.

“It's an excellent opportunity and we've seen some great growth from those businesses as a result.”

When a parcel from a business arrives, workers unpack and scan it on the ground floor before sending a large amount upstairs to the ‘stow area’.

It is here the aforementioned robots come into play, bringing storage pods to the workers who scan labels and load the containers based on the advice of their computers.

The reliance on technology is a common theme throughout my visit.

Thousands of the ‘Hercules’ robots roam three floors of the seemingly endless building, all of which can carry the weight of a grand piano and boast a top speed of about five miles per hour.

It’s reassuring to know I can outrun the robots of the future, even if they do trump me when it comes to heavy lifting.

What isn’t so reassuring is the idea that they will prioritise productivity and the customer over their so-called masters, meaning engineers can sometimes be forced to let them do their own thing.

It’s stories like this which contribute to the narrative of technology and AI taking over our jobs and, eventually, the world but John categorically tells me that “is a myth”.

“We're hiring more and more every year. I can't see in my lifetime a moment where we won't have people working alongside the automation,” said the site manager.

“But what has happened is it has changed the types of jobs that are available.

“In the UK alone we have 70,000 employees, we have the career choice program where we'll pay 95% of someone's tuition to learn engineering, data analytics, robotics and we have hundreds of people in this warehouse alone that are actually taking advantage of that.”

Amazon has spent decades working and refining its use of science, technology and AI to boost the customer’s experience and maximise efficiency.

But despite all the work, it still takes people to physically pack the goods into boxes – though again reliant on computers to tell them what goes where and in what size package.

Efficiency is the name of the game, with it taking about 20 to 30 seconds to load, scan and send off each parcel – all of which will have multiple items in.

They then arrive in the ‘slam’ where their shipping labels are sorted, though it’s a misleading name given Amazon machines use air to delicately blow the labels in place rather than slap them randomly on the boxes.

Single items have their own section of the warehouse, and various tried-and-tested methods are employed to ensure minimal wastage of cardboard and other materials.

In any case, the final step is to send them to a sorting machine which times its conveyor belts to ensure everywhere is where it needs to be in an orderly and proper fashion.

It is a remarkably simple process to the eye but is no doubt driven by thousands of calculations and billions of pounds of investment.

But what if it all goes wrong and Christmas has to be cancelled?

John looks confident as he tells me the processes in place to protect the customer’s orders, which include preventative measures and work with engineers to ensure the system remains free-flowing.

If anything, he seems to be buzzing ahead of the most challenging time of the year.

“We're excited for this period,” he admits.

“It is a time that we work year-round for and ultimately create an experience for not just our employees, but also customers.”

There will always be concerns over Amazon’s presence in the modern world, no matter how much they do.

Big businesses will always be subject to scrutiny, but at the same time we have to trust them to do the job and in this case, nobody can argue Amazon is the most efficient delivery service this country has right now.

However busy it may be today, I bet it is nothing compared to the week before Christmas so good luck to all involved.

I doubt they need it though, this is years of work in the making.