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If you've seen the public videos of Amazon robots in action [0][1], then you know that totes don't get stored high, and they don't get moved around in towers. These towers (a.k.a., "pods") look a lot like bookshelves. Pods do get moved around by the Kiva-derived robots, but they have non-removable cubbies into which a human reaches to pull out the identified product, then the products get put into totes. The totes then get moved around on a system of belts. Ultimately, the totes arrive at another human workstation where they get emptied and put into boxes or bags. Those boxes or bags then get moved to the trucks, where they get shipped out.
Now, you could store totes individually with products inside them instead of having the towers of cubbies, and then have arms that move around to pull out those individual totes and bring them to a station where the products could be removed and put into other totes. But that's not how the typical systems work today.
[0] https://youtu.be/Jh27vjAhE-c?si=AvKBhbkUbbFgFIn2 [1] https://youtu.be/7SvTdW4OLUQ?si=Cf6GbLLDIgjV5qQP