There was nothing unique about these items—they were puny in size and yet they arrived in a giant box bursting with air-filled packaging material. And I looked at that box with absolute and complete disgust, wondering, Is Amazon Prime actually an EcoCrime? Others on Twitter agreed with that take, which only reaffirmed my guilt for using Prime—for being an unwitting enabler of waste.
I’m not a member of Amazon Prime, but I know a lot of people, like Om, that are. I can’t wait to hear the explanation for the oversized packaging from Amazon.
Expedience. Fulfillment workers are threatened into speeding through their work, especially during holiday periods.
It’s not just Amazon (or Prime). Many companies are guilty of this. This is another area that Apple has quietly been a leader at, all without accolades. For the most parts, their packaging is rather economical, yet beautiful.
It’s purely logistics. They have so many items of so many sizes, it’s easier/cheaper/faster to use the biggest box at the lowest class until they’re full. Otherwise, they’d have to deal with inventory management of packaging as well as with items.
It can also be a requirement of the shipping service – Easier to palletize like boxes.
Kinda. Not sure why the Apple Watch comes in a box that weighs 3 lbs. Seemed unnecessarily heavy to me.
Om’s article is a meandering rant. There was little or no effort to go find out the reasons for things. He does not explain what the connection to Amazon “prime” is vs. regular amazon yet cites Amazon Prime stats. What about finishing the job and gathering stats about packaging tradeoffs and why things work the way they do? And Jim rightly wonders what the explanation is for the oversized packaging, when someone like Om Malik could pick up the phone and make a few calls and find that out for us. There’s a lot of conflation going on as well. Critical thinkers would find Om’s article grating and lazy, like the lazy journalist from WSJ who talked about how Apple purposely designs phones to run slow after a year of use.
As Om points out-ish, there have been many conversations about Amazon’s oversized shipping box problem for years (if not a decade?).
IMHO, oversized shipping boxes is a statement about the packaging industry not Amazon, et al. At some point someone will develop an alternative to the status quo.
Besides other comments here, is it not eco-friendly when the majority of recycling centers and curbside recycling pickup in many communities take corrugated cardboard and those plastic air-packs? Info written right on the air-packs says they are recyclable. I stuff mine in with plastic bags from the store and take it to any Wal-Mart to shove in the giant plastic bag recycle bin they have at the entrance of every store. (It’s about the only thing I do at Wal-Mart.)
While I find it a bit annoying to get a USB cable in a box sized for a DVR, I understand shipping things out fast doesn’t always mean the exact sized package is at hand and shipping is mostly handled by weight (the boxes are standardized). I simply make bi-weekly trips to the recycling center with my cardboard, tag board, plastics, etc.
What a disappointing article from Om. He poses himself a lot of questions and makes no attempt to answer any of them. If he was really concerned, he could have done a bit of research and come up with ways to be more ecologically minded when shopping online.
Personally, I don’t get his argument that a big, relatively empty box is causing fuel inefficiency in the delivery truck. Surely it’s harder for the truck to haul a more densely packed load than a lot of air. It might be space inefficient, but I doubt it’s so bad that the delivery company needs to put two trucks on the same route.
It’s a lot easier for any logistics company to have a few box sizes and use the air fill pillows (which use very, very little plastic film) than to manage a huge range of box sizes, so that’s increasing efficiency.
He seems like he’s trying to coin a phrase with his camel-cased ‘EcoCrime’ but he doesn’t have a strong argument for it. Even trying to link it to things like Uber seems weak. An Uber SUV that’s driving multiple people around throughout the day on-demand must be more efficient that all those people having their own vehicle that they use for their one trip and then park until rush hour. I don’t think Uber’s aim is to alleviate the SF traffic and if that person needs to make the trip, they’re going to do it in their own car or an Uber – it makes no difference to traffic who owns the vehicle.
All in all, I can see why he doesn’t have comments on his own site as I’m sure he’d have gotten a lot of feedback about this poor piece.
I ama Prime member and have noticed that over time the packaging has become more eco friendly. Yes, occasionally this isn’t the case. But, all of the excess material can be recycled.
Oh go fuck yourself with an atom bomb you whining fretting ecopansy . Everything is just a “problem” in your weak minds.
its not just the packaging, but zero cost shipping and 1-click purchases also mean that shoppers receive more frequent deliveries of fewer items, rather than waiting until a number of items can be shipped together. ecommerce is generally an eco-crime, not just prime.