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We're outside a brand new warehouse belonging to American logistics firm, PFS
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in the English city of Southampton.
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This place has been opened for one word and one reason - Brexit.
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Businesses across Britain are battling a stubbornly uncertain Brexit future,
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with well-known names ready to shut down their U.K. facilities or shift jobs overseas.
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But this e-commerce firm has chosen a different route.
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You're looking to expand in the next few weeks?
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Absolutely.
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What we see now is not the full picture.
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It will not be all of it, no.
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Lisa Cooley left Memphis, Tennessee late last year
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to open this new fulfillment center in the port city of Southampton.
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She's barely gotten her feet under the table, but Brexit's March 29 deadline is already demanding her attention.
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It's a task, trying to start something up in that span of time.
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And it's also a task trying to get inventory moved and imported here and
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set up and you have processes you have to build around that.
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I believe it's a little chaotic in the beginning but, at the end, our goal is to service our client.
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Her company employs thousands of workers worldwide and those clients are as global as their consumers.
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Until recently, PFS had only one major European warehouse in Belgium,
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just an hour outside Brussels where U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May has traveled again and again
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to try and salvage her divorce deal with the EU.
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Regardless of how well or badly Brexit negotiations go in the coming weeks,
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it's clear that many sectors seeking to do business here in Britain have already made significant changes,
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and this warehouse is one big example.
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Logistics can be relentless and companies like PFS cannot wait on the politicians
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while they wrap, pack and ship people's parcels.
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Opening a new fulfillment center, it's not an easy task. There's timelines.
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It takes time to get equipment, it takes time to get your systems up and going.
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Of course you have to go through the process of hiring employees
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and time, I wouldn't necessarily say is on the side of the retailers we service.
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It's not just time, is it? It's money, right?
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So you guys are spending money on building a facility like this, hiring people here in the U.K.
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Does that, in your view, get passed on to someone in the end?
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Yeah, I think essentially it goes to the consumer at the end, right?
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With five weeks to go, if it's a no deal, there would be for them an initial cost increase as they up their capacity
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to enable traders that do business with EU companies to work as if they were doing trade
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with the rest of the world today, and those costs have already been incurred as a contingency measure.
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Brexit may have shattered British politics, but the economy has so far survived
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with unemployment at its lowest level in generations.
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I think in the long run it's more the uncertainty of not know which direction you're going to proceed,
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I think that's the biggest concern and the biggest challenge here.
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And as firms make preparations, and banks book provisions,
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those Brexit concerns are now big enough to fill a building.