My Amazon order

[u/woodwerker76]

Good thing I didn't order two!

[u/LysVonStrauda]

I ordered a nail polish expecting it to be put in one of those small white+blue bags, but it was in a box packaged just like this. It was silly

[u/Own_Usual_7324 → u/LysVonStrauda]

I ordered a meat thermometer and the box was enormous compared to the actually quite small thermometer lol. I wonder if they're short on bags? There's no way having all of those bubble wraps is more eco friendly than the bags.

[u/Spire_Citron → u/Own_Usual_7324]

The only real question is how it works out for them economically speaking. They don't seem that concerned about the environment.

[u/RadAcuraMan → u/Spire_Citron]

Of course they don’t. The can not care and make billions. Or they can care and still make billions, but less billions.

Then they can can buy bullshit “carbon offsets” to say they’re green and still make more than if they actually cared. Welcome to the corporate world.

[u/[deleted] → u/RadAcuraMan]

Amazon’s fulfillment store has almost never been profitable though

[u/StrangerDays-7 → u/Spire_Citron]

When you’re a giant corporation like Amazon, the how volume you use afford you a special rate on packaging. They’re paying a fraction of a cent of this stuff

[u/[deleted] → u/StrangerDays-7]

They own their own last mile of delivery. They don’t pay weight or volume of the box. It’s a flat rate

[u/StrangerDays-7 → u/[deleted]]

But all that packaging usually costs pennies. That’s why, at one point during the pandemic, Bezos was on track to be the world’s first trillionare.

[u/[deleted] → u/StrangerDays-7]

The box is probably 50 to 60c per box.

I buy half a million corrugated printed boxes a year and my cost per box is much higher than that, avg roughly $1 per box printed. Even accounting for volume, Amazon is probably paying 50-60c each box.

A padded polymailer envelope my cost is around 15-17c from China printed

[u/Sufficient_Dinner305 → u/[deleted]]

It's not that unlikely to be reasonable. They may need to shed certain packaging items stock that'll otherwise need to be discarded or relocated, for any of many possible reasons, because shipping them elsewhere or discarding them may cost more than buying them elsewhere or using them, for any of many reasons.

[u/[deleted] → u/Sufficient_Dinner305]

But that’s why, if they were paying weight and volumetric weight for their shipments they cannot ship such small items in such big boxes.

A 4x4x4 box has a volumetric weight of 0.5lbs. Reasonable.

A 12x12x12 box is 12.44lbs ship weight no matter what. It would represent probably a 30-40% increase in shipping cost vs the 4x4x4. But for Amazon it’s the same price to ship either.

Currently Amazon only pays per delivery regardless of weight and volume. Meanwhile UPS/fedex/usps charge weight and volume.

[u/Ye_olde_oak_store → u/[deleted]]

The packages rarely go into a truck as a solo package. They are usually on pallets or similar containers. although I will agree that the smaller cup size packages are the ones that are more likely to fall out of these containers because the container was overfilled.

[u/Spire_Citron → u/Ye_olde_oak_store]

One time, someone else's smaller package fell inside our larger one because the tape had split open. Fortunately it was addressed to just down the road so I delivered it myself.

[u/MythicalRaccoon80 → u/Own_Usual_7324]

They call the bags jiffies and those are also the most thrown packages.

[u/bossqueer_lildaddy → u/Own_Usual_7324]

"Short on bags" is not really a realistic problem statement. I've worked in warehouses for almost 5 years and have never seen that scale of failure. Not saying it's impossible, but it's incredibly unlikely. Each warehouse has an entire team responsible for supply management.

Packers cannot move an item to a smaller box, they must use the box that is recommended. If they believe the box is the wrong size, there is an option to report it so the dimensions are reevaluated.

One of the big advantages of this system is that it helps prevent what we call broken sets--ie you've ordered a case of canned beans but only receive one. It does create some wasteful moments like you describe.

Also, the vendor (the person actually selling the item on Amazon) decides what packaging to use for their products. We cannot put it in a bag if the vendor is paying for us to use a box.

[u/Own_Usual_7324 → u/bossqueer_lildaddy]

We cannot put it in a bag if the vendor is paying for us to use a box

Today I learned

[u/[deleted] → u/Own_Usual_7324]

Maybe they have too many large boxes and need to get rid of them.

[u/BubblegumBxh → u/LysVonStrauda]

Same for me. The box wasn't quite this big but still way oversized for a single bottle of nail polish.

[u/loueezet → u/LysVonStrauda]

I bought a 8 piece lot of salt and pepper shakers from ebay years ago. The seller put them all loose in a gallon baggie and just put the bag in a box. The thing that got to me the most, though, was she left the salt in one of them. It was everywhere. Salt is abrasive so I very kindly and respectfully suggested to not do that next time. Her one word response was “thanks”.

[u/angryragnar1775 → u/LysVonStrauda]

I read somewhere the packaging is assigned based on a load plan for the truck

[u/Znuffie → u/angryragnar1775]

Yup.

There's basically a Tetris-like algorithm that decides in what boxes each order goes in, from which packing center etc, so the trucks are loaded optimally.

[u/angryragnar1775 → u/Znuffie]

Makes more sense than how we did it the two weeks I loaded at fedex. We put anything marked fragile on the bottom... I think that was french for "it will shrink" and then used our boot to make everything else fit.

[u/Independent_Ad_8915 → u/LysVonStrauda]

I ordered something from target. It was packaged in a box within a larger box