Will Pa. plant survive Amazon's Quidsi shutdown?

With Amazon shutting down Quidsi, operator of Soaps.com, Diapers.com and other sites the online-shopping giant bought for $545 million in 2011, what happens to Quidsi's 1.3 million square foot "fulfillment center" in Goldsboro, Covington Township, south of Scranton?

"They're still operating," says Andy Skrip, vice president of the Scranton chamber of commerce. Quidsi employs around 275 at the warehouse, which has more floor space than Comcast headquarters, the tallest tower in Philadelphia. The warehouse was originally built for Circuit City, the electronics-store chain, which went bankrupt in the 2008 recession, before it could be occupied.

Quidsi's Jersey City headquarters is laying off 261, Amazon told New Jersey in a federal WARN Act notice. Quidsi also has warehouses in the Kansas City area and Nevada. Amazon plans to merge its customers into its larger site. Quidsi officials in Jersey City and Gouldsboro didn't immediately return calls.

Amazon has 12 other warehouses across Pennsylvania. The state gave Amazon hundreds of millions of dollars in sales-tax forgiveness to build more "fulfillment centers" in the state, and last year accepted $22.5 million more in state aid in exchange for its promise to add 5,000 jobs, pushing its total above 13,000, by 2019.

The Quidsi plant was excluded from that deal, so Amazon could close it without jeopardizing its state cash -- though it's a drop in the bucket for a firm whose sales are approaching $4 billion a week.

After selling Quidsi, cofounder Marc Lore, a Dickinson College graduate, went on to form Jet.com, which he sold to Walmart Stores last year for $3 billion.

Lore now runs Walmart's e-commerce division, which after its late start has been competing aggressively with Amazon.