7 ms·

The efficiency and environmental impact from delivering a single $5 item in a large cardboard box, possibly multiple times a day, several days a week via gig ec

The efficiency and environmental impact from delivering a single $5 item in a large cardboard box, possibly multiple times a day, several days a week via gig economy couriers is disgusting. I literally cannot leave my apartment complex without driving around Amazon vans parked in the middle of the street every single day. At a minimum, without even shipping more items, the result of gig couriers vs. fedex/ups is 2.7x the number of vehicles on the road (due to size difference). It also gets around legal liability costs, since you can just create and destroy hundreds of gig courier corporations around the country when issues arise from "pushing the envelope" in terms of safety and policy. Can you imagine the world we would live in if 90% of current retailers went to the Amazon ecommerce + gig courier model? Our infrastructure (primarily roads) would immediately fail.

didibus 7y ago
Are you sure? Instead of driving to the store they drive to me. Why is it worse?
- bhandziuk 7y ago
  Maybe it wouldn't be so bad it there wasn't such a hurry. It's the next day or possible this day delivery that makes this so bad.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    When people go shopping it's same day too, no matter how small or trivial the item is.
    - htek 7y ago
      People shopping for their own items usually don't have a deadline to get to the store and back so quickly that they deliberately endanger the lives of other people on the road by ignoring traffic laws.
    - bhandziuk 7y ago
      people usually don't go shopping every day possibly multiple times a day. Whereas Amazon gives them the ability to order things such that a car drives up to their house and delivers stuff multiple times per day.
    - PeterisP 7y ago
      Quite the opposite, people usually don't actually go out shopping just for a single trivial item, they delay the purchase until some later time when they go shopping for some important item or many trivial items at once. Splitting the same total purchases in many separate "shoppings" is the fragmentation problem that causes much more "delivery events".
      - manigandham 7y ago
        I find plenty of instances of people buying 1 thing at a store so it goes both ways. Regardless, the marginal cost of adding an extra stop to an optimized delivery route is very low compared to a shopping roundtrip for a single consumer.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  It's more like, instead of you and each of your neighbors driving to the store separately, you're driving to the store alone and getting groceries for yourself and all your neighbors at the same time.
- CardenB 7y ago
  People don't usually drive to the store every single day for a single item, whereas amazon would deliver a single item to people every single day.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    That same delivery vehicle can service 100s of homes at once though, which is why it's more efficient regardless of 1-day delivery windows. I'm sure they could do a better job of batching deliveries for a single drop off per day but I don't think that's as bad as it might seem considering the overall reduction in consumer-to-store travel.
mrep 7y ago
Wouldn't it make it better? It seems far more efficient to have 1 car drive an optimal route to 500 houses delivering items than have 500 cars all drive to 1 store to pick up their items.
- vpmpaul 7y ago
  Beat me to it. I can't imagine how even with the boxes(many which are recycled) it is less efficient for a single route driver to replace hundreds if not more individual trips for the same result.
- leesalminen 7y ago
  For me, it’s a 45 minute drive to Wally World. There’s a Safeway 25 minutes away but it’s a tourist town so everything is double priced. Many of my neighbors and I have started using HelloFresh and Amazon delivery for most things. In casual conversation we talk about how our miles driven has decreased drastically. For our community, delivery seems to be “greener” than each of us driving 90 minutes for groceries 1-2x/week.
- losteric 7y ago
  Depends on delivery density. Apartment complex with loads of items delivered each day? Makes sense, though packaging is still environmental overhead. Lots of single family homes ordering individual items distributed across suburbia? Less efficient than customer driving to the store once a week to get everything they need.
  - dantheman 7y ago
    You are assuming they only go to the store once a week; and that there isn't a cost to them not having what they need when they need it. The cost can be in reduced productivity/time loss, etc or it can be in over-provisioning in which you buy extras that aren't needed (and may never be used).
    - davidw 7y ago
      Lots of assumptions and unknowns. Implement a carbon tax and watch the market reconfigure itself. Also: let's re-legalize corner stores!
alexashka 7y ago
I hear you. This to me seems like a trivial problem however. Just limit it to X number of packages delivered to your door, per week.
- city41 7y ago
  Amazon would fight that tooth and nail, and very likely win.
- LanceH 7y ago
  X number of packages would lock in inefficiencies. X number of deliveries would promote efficient delivery (at the expense of timeliness).
  - notus 7y ago
    Amazon tries to encourage this by using a "delivery day" for all your weekly deliveries to come. They need to incentivize it a bit harder I think with free digital content. If I could rent a movie from prime (not something new but let's say original Matrix) in exchange for using the prime delivery day option then I probably would. Otherwise they are relying on people to realize that constant deliveries are a problem and then sacrifice existing conveniences they have for that problem.
    - pbalau 7y ago
      Maybe that's why they don't "fix" the Amazon Logistics service. Force you to get all deliveries when you are home and you might as well pick a time slot dor that.
- paxys 7y ago
  Amazon does have a feature where you can pick a day of the week to get all your packages. I don't believe people really use it though, because what's the incentive to wait longer?
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
devy 7y ago
Same-day-delivery is kinda solved in other countries - read more on stories of Meituan[1] or JD.com[2]. Granted, the labor cost, infrastructure are different. But answer is probably not gig-economy delivery but self-serve lockboxes, robots or drones. By the way, delivery workforce use electric mopeds, not diesel vans like we do here in America. [1] https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/3025295/meituan-tests-unmanned-delivery-robots-beijing-and-shenzhen https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/3025295/meitua... [2]: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jdcom-speeds-package-deliveries-with-new-parcel-delivery-service-for-chinese-consumers-300738254.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jdcom-speeds-packag...
- kelnos 7y ago
  I really wish I could pick up Amazon packages at a lockbox. I live in San Francisco, and Amazon's checkout process tells me the closest location I could pick up a package is at Berkeley's student union, across the bay, which is a good 30-40 minute drive (each way) unless I'm very lucky with bridge traffic. It's an hour using transit, including two transfers and 15 minutes of walking, which isn't really doable if I have anything but the smallest of packages to pick up. I get that real estate is expensive in SF, but it's a little insane we can't do local pickups. It would be cool if Amazon could make an arrangement to drop packages off at USPS post offices; there's one a few blocks from me. Not as convenient as delivery to my apartment, but eliminates problems around package theft and delivery drivers unable to get into my building.
  - mrep 7y ago
    Maybe ask your local whole foods to add some Amazon lockers? They added those to the whole foods next to me.
  - hackeraccount 7y ago
    They don't have lockers in those Amazon Go store's? That is très weird.
  - justinv 7y ago
    Where do you live in San Francisco? There are tons of Amazon Lockers there where you could pick up a package. Here is a search on Google Maps. https://www.google.com/maps/search/Amazon+Lockers/@37.758045,-122.5076406,12z https://www.google.com/maps/search/Amazon+Lockers/@37.758045...
OrgNet 7y ago
USPS comes daily to my house anyways (usually to deliver junk that I don't want)... seems like it should be feasible without causing chaos...

didibus 7y ago

Are you sure? Instead of driving to the store they drive to me. Why is it worse?

bhandziuk 7y ago
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad it there wasn't such a hurry. It's the next day or possible this day delivery that makes this so bad.
- manigandham 7y ago
  When people go shopping it's same day too, no matter how small or trivial the item is.
  - htek 7y ago
    People shopping for their own items usually don't have a deadline to get to the store and back so quickly that they deliberately endanger the lives of other people on the road by ignoring traffic laws.
  - bhandziuk 7y ago
    people usually don't go shopping every day possibly multiple times a day. Whereas Amazon gives them the ability to order things such that a car drives up to their house and delivers stuff multiple times per day.
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    Quite the opposite, people usually don't actually go out shopping just for a single trivial item, they delay the purchase until some later time when they go shopping for some important item or many trivial items at once. Splitting the same total purchases in many separate "shoppings" is the fragmentation problem that causes much more "delivery events".
    - manigandham 7y ago
      I find plenty of instances of people buying 1 thing at a store so it goes both ways. Regardless, the marginal cost of adding an extra stop to an optimized delivery route is very low compared to a shopping roundtrip for a single consumer.
stronglikedan 7y ago
It's more like, instead of you and each of your neighbors driving to the store separately, you're driving to the store alone and getting groceries for yourself and all your neighbors at the same time.
CardenB 7y ago
People don't usually drive to the store every single day for a single item, whereas amazon would deliver a single item to people every single day.
- manigandham 7y ago
  That same delivery vehicle can service 100s of homes at once though, which is why it's more efficient regardless of 1-day delivery windows. I'm sure they could do a better job of batching deliveries for a single drop off per day but I don't think that's as bad as it might seem considering the overall reduction in consumer-to-store travel.

mrep 7y ago

Wouldn't it make it better? It seems far more efficient to have 1 car drive an optimal route to 500 houses delivering items than have 500 cars all drive to 1 store to pick up their items.

vpmpaul 7y ago
Beat me to it. I can't imagine how even with the boxes(many which are recycled) it is less efficient for a single route driver to replace hundreds if not more individual trips for the same result.
leesalminen 7y ago
For me, it’s a 45 minute drive to Wally World. There’s a Safeway 25 minutes away but it’s a tourist town so everything is double priced. Many of my neighbors and I have started using HelloFresh and Amazon delivery for most things. In casual conversation we talk about how our miles driven has decreased drastically. For our community, delivery seems to be “greener” than each of us driving 90 minutes for groceries 1-2x/week.
losteric 7y ago
Depends on delivery density. Apartment complex with loads of items delivered each day? Makes sense, though packaging is still environmental overhead. Lots of single family homes ordering individual items distributed across suburbia? Less efficient than customer driving to the store once a week to get everything they need.
- dantheman 7y ago
  You are assuming they only go to the store once a week; and that there isn't a cost to them not having what they need when they need it. The cost can be in reduced productivity/time loss, etc or it can be in over-provisioning in which you buy extras that aren't needed (and may never be used).
  - davidw 7y ago
    Lots of assumptions and unknowns. Implement a carbon tax and watch the market reconfigure itself. Also: let's re-legalize corner stores!

alexashka 7y ago

I hear you. This to me seems like a trivial problem however. Just limit it to X number of packages delivered to your door, per week.

city41 7y ago
Amazon would fight that tooth and nail, and very likely win.
LanceH 7y ago
X number of packages would lock in inefficiencies. X number of deliveries would promote efficient delivery (at the expense of timeliness).
- notus 7y ago
  Amazon tries to encourage this by using a "delivery day" for all your weekly deliveries to come. They need to incentivize it a bit harder I think with free digital content. If I could rent a movie from prime (not something new but let's say original Matrix) in exchange for using the prime delivery day option then I probably would. Otherwise they are relying on people to realize that constant deliveries are a problem and then sacrifice existing conveniences they have for that problem.
  - pbalau 7y ago
    Maybe that's why they don't "fix" the Amazon Logistics service. Force you to get all deliveries when you are home and you might as well pick a time slot dor that.
paxys 7y ago
Amazon does have a feature where you can pick a day of the week to get all your packages. I don't believe people really use it though, because what's the incentive to wait longer?
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago

devy 7y ago

Same-day-delivery is kinda solved in other countries - read more on stories of Meituan[1] or JD.com[2]. Granted, the labor cost, infrastructure are different. But answer is probably not gig-economy delivery but self-serve lockboxes, robots or drones. By the way, delivery workforce use electric mopeds, not diesel vans like we do here in America. [1] https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/3025295/meituan-tests-unmanned-delivery-robots-beijing-and-shenzhen https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/3025295/meitua... [2]: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jdcom-speeds-package-deliveries-with-new-parcel-delivery-service-for-chinese-consumers-300738254.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jdcom-speeds-packag...

kelnos 7y ago
I really wish I could pick up Amazon packages at a lockbox. I live in San Francisco, and Amazon's checkout process tells me the closest location I could pick up a package is at Berkeley's student union, across the bay, which is a good 30-40 minute drive (each way) unless I'm very lucky with bridge traffic. It's an hour using transit, including two transfers and 15 minutes of walking, which isn't really doable if I have anything but the smallest of packages to pick up. I get that real estate is expensive in SF, but it's a little insane we can't do local pickups. It would be cool if Amazon could make an arrangement to drop packages off at USPS post offices; there's one a few blocks from me. Not as convenient as delivery to my apartment, but eliminates problems around package theft and delivery drivers unable to get into my building.
- mrep 7y ago
  Maybe ask your local whole foods to add some Amazon lockers? They added those to the whole foods next to me.
- hackeraccount 7y ago
  They don't have lockers in those Amazon Go store's? That is très weird.
- justinv 7y ago
  Where do you live in San Francisco? There are tons of Amazon Lockers there where you could pick up a package. Here is a search on Google Maps. https://www.google.com/maps/search/Amazon+Lockers/@37.758045,-122.5076406,12z https://www.google.com/maps/search/Amazon+Lockers/@37.758045...

OrgNet 7y ago

USPS comes daily to my house anyways (usually to deliver junk that I don't want)... seems like it should be feasible without causing chaos...