Thousands of parcels are shipped every day to homes across the region from Amazon's huge warehouses - but not all of them come from the North East.

The online retailer, which has sites in Durham, Darlington, Gateshead - and soon, one in Stockton, ships hundreds of thousands of orders every single week.

But what you may not know is that your parcel could come from any one of the retailer's sites across the UK, despite two large sites being on our doorstep.

This is because items sold by certain vendors may only be stocked at a particular 'Fulfilment Centre', awaiting dispatch to any location.

However, a large proportion of parcels in the region do come from the existing sites here and this is how you know whether yours is from one.

The Northern Echo:

Amazon in Darlington's Symmetry Park Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT

All fulfilment centres are named after their nearest airport, which in this case is Teesside which has an airport code of MME.

Printed on all parcels coming from Amazon, the code name of the site where the item was fulfilled in is displayed on the bottom left. 

Amazon at Symmetry Park in Darlington, which opened in spring last year, is located around five miles from Teesside Airport and has the code name, MME1. 

Amazon at the Integra 61 Industrial Estate in Bowburn, near Durham, which opened in October 2020, is located around 19 miles from the airport and has a code name, MME2.

The Northern Echo:

Amazon at the Follingsby Max in Gateshead, which opened last year, carries a different code name, NCL1 - named after Newcastle Airport, around 12 miles away.

The soon-to-open site at Wynyard near Stockton has already been assigned NCL2 - strangely named after Newcastle Airport, despite being further away than Teesside.

A spokesperson for Amazon told The Northern Echo: “Our fulfilment network is made up of state-of-the-art technology and a variety of building types and sizes to ensure customer orders are picked, packed and shipped to millions of homes on time.

"Orders despatched from our centres in Darlington, (Gateshead) and Durham are delivered to customers across the UK, Europe and the world.”

Parcels coming from other sites across the UK, which serve the region, will have the following code names added to their labels:

BRS1 – Bristol

BHX5 - Rugby

EDI4 – Dunfermline

CWL1 – Swansea

LBA1 – Doncaster

LCY2 – Tilbury

MAN2 – Warrington