
Amazon's Vanishing Cardboard Box - Tomte
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/16/business/amazon-cardboard-box-prime-day/index.html
======
Mountain_Skies
Amazon sometimes gets things wrong when it comes to packaging but they're
light years ahead of Wal-Mart when it comes to right size packaging. I've only
ordered online from walmart maybe half a dozen times but each time the box was
too big and the contents were all flopping around hitting each other. I
haven't tried their store pickup yet but have been amazed at how poorly
they've implemented box packing for delivery.

~~~
lholden
I generally like to bunch up my orders such that (hopefully) as much of my
stuff as possible gets packed into the same box.

A recent order though had two things of eye liner in it aaaaand... of course
they ended up in their own very oversized box. (I did go back and make sure
that part was also fulfilled by Amazon. My guess is that someone just thought
it would be funny to ship a package that is 99.5% empty :D)

~~~
yellow_postit
I wish there was an option to bunch up the orders more to reduce packaging at
a cost of greater shipping times or even some additional fees (could pitch
those as carbon credits to reduce waste). This was something Jet had
encouraged really well.

~~~
Johnny555
Amazon Prime lets you choose a "Prime Day" and when you place an order, you
can choose to have it be delivered on that day of the week.

Not a perfect solution since sometimes orders come from different warehouses
so are still packaged separately, but it's a pretty good way to combine orders
into less packaging.

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Tagbert
I actually wish they would use more cardboard boxes and less of the plastic
envelopes.

The cardboard boxes are easily recyclable or compostable. the plastic
generally cannot be recycled but will sit in a landfill forever (at best).

~~~
gumby
Cardboard is a lot heavier so costs more to transport, plus of course its
production is somewhat energy intensive. On a lifecycle basis does it consume
more oil than a plastic envelope?

I prefer cardboard but I wonder if I ought not.

~~~
kalleboo
Also the plastic lying in a landfill not decomposing is essentially
sequestered carbon, isn't it? Which is better than burnt fuel sending the
carbon into the atmosphere.

~~~
arnoooooo
That's assuming it doesn't get burned. A lot of places use incinerators to get
rid of garbage.

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toss1
I hope they can get this sorted out.

Of course everyone's seen the oversize boxes containing a relatively thimble-
sized object, but I've pretty much had to stop buying books at Amazon -
especially hardcovers for gifts. Nearly EVERY time, they just toss the book(s)
in an oversize box, with zero or token padding. Of course the books arrive
with the corners crunched and dust jacket torn. Usually not terribly, but more
than enough that it is no longer a new book or suitable for a gift. They've
gotten a lot of returns.

Very occasionally, rarely enough that it may be the book printers themselves
doing it, I get a (usually paperback) book shrink-wrapped in to a larger
cardboard, placed in a larger box. These arrive perfect every time, but
obviously use more packaging & labor. Still, seems like less than 2-4x
return/reship cycles trying to get a good one.

It just seems ironic that Amazon started out selling & shipping books, has
become a technology leader in multiple fields, yet still cannot get it right
how to ship a book.

~~~
wrp
Bruised books have been an intermittent (and exasperating) problem with Amazon
(and Borders and Barnes & Noble) from the beginning. I've always been
surprised that they never managed to permanently sort out the packaging of
their core product.

~~~
toss1
Yes, seems like the primary example of the boxed for shipment to a store vs
e-commerce. In the store, the books came in a pallet/carton set, and they are
all pristine. Breaking that pallet and tossing it in a box for another
shipment is just guaranteed to damage it unless packed diligently.

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stuart78
Interesting that so much consumer product is still packaged for retail, even
some brands that I imagine sell a vast majority online. retail packaging
translates to online-friendly packaging, but the reserve seems likely to be
less true.

Not to be pessimistic, but I would guess that the added cost of managing two
SKUs for each product is not feasible for many smaller retailers, especially
since the cost (putting in a new box) here is born by those further down the
supply chain.

All that said, I've seen a lot more Amazon orders ship in plastic bags
recently. Even the car seat I bought recently which is ship-ready without
another layer. My guess there was that adding the plastic anonymized the
purchase a bit, which might ward off thieves?

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ilamont
I took a tour of the Amazon FC in Fall River, Mass., last month. It stocks
about 400,000 SKUs, all larger items (as I recall meaning at least one size of
the item is more than 15") and they have a _lot_ of irregular items - mops,
rakes, window blinds, pool noodles, you name it.

One of the most interesting parts of the tour is the "box machine" used to
scan and make custom boxes for these odd-shaped items. We watched a worker
take a bundle of tiki torches and quickly package them using the machine, and
it seemed pretty efficient in terms of matching the size of the box to the
size of the item.

~~~
blairanderson
I know for certain they're working on this, and pushing this boxing up the
stack to suppliers.

As of August 1st, Amazon started charging/fining their suppliers $2/unit if
large items are not able to ship in their own packaging.

Meaning anything that is A) large, and B) unable to ship with UPS adding a
label will cost suppliers an extra $2.

They call this program SIOC (ships in own container)

The fun part is that amazon does not accept price increases very easily.
Especially not in this scenario... so suppliers either have to A) repackage
their shit, B) eat the cost, C) find a partner to help distribute.

source: I'm an Amazon Consultant [1]. and we help brands figure this stuff
out.

[https://www.andersonassociates.net/2018/frustration-
free/](https://www.andersonassociates.net/2018/frustration-free/)

~~~
ilamont
They mentioned SIOC as an option for sellers of any type of good but they
positioned it as a way for sellers to save money ("we're not charging them for
the box") and have better control over branding.

I am an Amazon seller myself (two brands) and I am interested in your comment
about changing prices. I've done this in the past and don't recall getting any
pushback. Is this something new, or is there a threshold you have to hit that
triggers a rejection of a price increase?

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human
I just can’t believe there is 85 people working in this team and I still get a
box that is 10 times the size it needs to be.

~~~
ckluis
My understanding is that they have an algorithm which determines the best box
size to minimize breakage and initial packing of the car for fullness.

This means your box size may be to prevent breakage for another box.

~~~
olyjohn
I dunno. I ordered a gallon of oil for my car, and it came in a box that could
easily hold 6 of these gallon containers. There was one plastic air pocket for
packaging, which was basically flopping around in the box with the oil, and
doing nothing. I would think that the oil container flying around the box
would cause more damage to other packages than if they had packed it tightly.

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r00fus
I have to applaud Amazon Fresh for their innovative packaging (vs. e.g. Google
Express)

Handle paper bags instead of boxes, frozen water bottles instead of freezer
packs to keep things cold, everything packed tightly but not bulging.

~~~
jayd16
They originally started with very heavy freezer bags and freezer packs or dry
ice. I really like the paper and water bottles but I do wonder if the thick
plastic bottle is actually less trash overall.

~~~
r00fus
It's immediately usable as a cooling device and consumable as portable water.

If you assume (sadly true) that most families probably use bottled water (we
do for short trips where it's easier than filling up the reusable ones), this
simply defers new purchases of bottled water.

Granted, it's promoting bottled water usage, but from a consumer point of
view, I'd rather the frozen bottle of water than one MORE of those stay-kool
packs.

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post_break
I really dislike those white plastic bags they ship stuff in. Always seems so
wasteful.

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garmaine
One thing that concerns me is that the cardboard biodegrades, while the
plastic bubble wrap envelopes I’ve been getting things in lately presumably
does not. That’s a lot of plastic packaging waste that will end up in the
oceans.

~~~
alacombe
Plastic waste in the ocean pretty much never comes from any western countries.
The "pacific patch" comes mainly from Africa and Asia.

~~~
garmaine
Which is where we send our plastic recycling.

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miker64
This starts to explain why any vinyl records I order from the UK/Europe come
in a package that is insufficient to protect the record. And US orders come
wrapped in layers of cardboard to protect from the USPS throwers.

~~~
jack_h
Yeah, I ordered a drywall trowel from Amazon a while ago and it came in a
plastic bag. Someone, somewhere dropped it and it bent the corner. I looked at
returning it and the process seemed convoluted at best, so I just hammered out
the corner until it was good enough to be functional again.

I tend not to order from Amazon much anymore, and this only strengthens my
resolve to order from other retailers.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
Below $15, there are no returns in Amazon now.

Everything else, it's either USPS label or pick up at home.

~~~
m463
I was talking to a guy at the UPS store and he said amazon told them to bundle
all their returns together.

Meaning, 12 customers return stuff, they put all 12 returns in the same box
and send it in.

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Relys
Warning. This site starts auto playing a video with audio.

~~~
skolos
Unless you open it with Firefox.

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jccalhoun
I wish there was some sort of program to give the boxes back to amazon so they
could reuse them or something. I guess the work of having to make sure they
were clean would be too expensive.

~~~
alacombe
I've been donating about 3' high pile of Amazon boxes every 6 month or so to
local businesses. Well, actually _was_ , before I got in retail myself.

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alacombe
This is utter nonsense. From all I can say, Amazon has been moving away from
recyclable / re-usable packaging and is pretty bad at optimization.

Paper padded envelope have moved recently to plastic ones (say, over the past
6 month). Now the shipping tag cannot be removed and the enveloppe cannot be
reused. Also Carboard box move every now and then to non-descript box to
highly customized and covered by advertisement ones.

On the optimization side, they are very, VERY, bad, how many times have I
received a huge box with a tiny item...

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QuercusMax
Does this mean they'll stop putting a box which says "Ready to Ship" inside
another stupid cardboard box that's just sliiightly larger, just so they can
show off their Amazon logo?

~~~
ineedasername
I just got a package like that yesterday. The article points out that's
sometimes done for privacy & security (if a package is, for example, obviously
a laptop it might be more likely to be stolen)

However, the package I received yesterday wouldn't have had these issues. The
inner wasn't obviously something of steal-able value.

~~~
degenerate
I think Amazon does this automatically for expensive items, but for less
expensive items they let you choose:

[https://images.markets.businessinsider.com/image/5c140c7eb3c...](https://images.markets.businessinsider.com/image/5c140c7eb3c21d1bb926bcd5-840/ship-
in-amazon-packaging.jpg)

~~~
QuercusMax
Hmm, I'll have to look for that next time.

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blairanderson
TL;DR Amazon wants "Zero Packaging" which is their way of saying they want
suppliers to pay for packaging, and every product should be manufactured for
eCommerce consumption.

Unfortunately:

\- Most manufacturers cannot afford dual stock (retail packaging and eCommerce
packaging)

\- Most manufacturers cannot afford employees onhand to repackage each
eCommerce order

For now this hurts the consumer. Soon eCommerce packaging will be table
stakes.

~~~
kalleboo
I've started seeing retail packaging that is basically just a full-color
paper/cardboard sleeve over what I assume is the eCommerce packaging

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8bitsrule
I'm regularly sent two containing boxes. One contains 20-lbs of plastic-sacked
loose material. The other holds 2-dozen food cans (~10 lbs) set in a plastic-
wrapped half-box. Both containing boxes are thin cardboard.

Their only purpose seems to be for transport-packing and carrying to my door.
That's a lot of waste for a trip across town.

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kalleboo
It seems at some point the rough handling by the couriers should also be
addressed. If they weren't crushing the packages in shipping, the packaging
could be much lighter.

I live in Japan now and I've maybe only once had a domestic package arrive
damaged, despite the much thinner cardboard used here, so it must be possible.

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dobleboble
I wish that all the plastic packaging could be recycled through the normal
processes instead of "store drop off".

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sdiupIGPWEfh
Explains all the poorly packaged (and thus damages) items I've received from
Amazon lately. I'm curious at what point the extra carbon emissions from
shipping returns and replacements outweighs the environmental impact of
cardboard savings. Anyone up to doing some back of the envelope calculations
on that?

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inlined
I’m glad Amazon is reducing waste as a distributor. I also think Apple has
done a great job over the years as a manufacturer. I was in retail from
2004-2007; I remember how the Apple boxes kept shrinking drastically. Other
hardware followed suit, but the iPod, MacBook, and MacBook Pro seemed to be
blazing the trail.

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bcheung
Amazon cardboard boxes have so many uses from Maker projects, to mulch, to
shredding and sticking in the compost.

~~~
dylan604
Don't for get the cats.

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thaumasiotes
> And in China, a company called Suning.com is using shared plastic delivery
> boxes in 13 cities that can be almost infinitely reused.

...is this really a different company from the Suning (no ".com") department
store?

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jonknee
CNBC had a similar piece last week with more detail:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYh1KTfydvU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYh1KTfydvU)

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cwkoss
weird title, seems like cnn is trying to make it seem that amazon is being
effective at eliminating cardboard

~~~
iainmerrick
I was thinking the same. Implying that Amazon is at the forefront of solving
this problem, when in fact they’re the main culprits (and have been for
years).

~~~
yellow_postit
Those aren’t mutually exclusive states. They may be trying to solve the very
problem they’ve exacerbated.

~~~
cwkoss
To draw a superlative parallel, an article called "Tobacco Industry's
Vanishing Cancer" that talks about how they are now studying how to stop
cancer would be effectively the same, but a less subtle defense.

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neonate
[http://archive.is/e00mA](http://archive.is/e00mA)

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bwb
Well I just learned like 10 things, that was awesome and I am amazed it was on
CNN :)

~~~
mhdhn
It is rather strange, isn't it? I usually auto back out once I see it's CNN.
They still roll the freakin' insanely annoying video without any gesture from
me, but somehow I didn't notice before I'd started reading. I may have lost a
step tho...

~~~
bwb
ya I've got them blocked with a browser addon for that plus annoying
headlines, I actually opened an incognito browser for this one and was
pleasantly surprised.

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RocketSyntax
save the box. just slap a shipping label on my item itself... it probably has
packaging already anyways.

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JaimeThompson
Will make it easier for people driving by my house to pick which packages to
steal...

~~~
benj111
Why?

Is there a correlation between size and value?

It would make it easier to steal all your packages though, as they could fit
more packages in their van/car/bike.

~~~
comex
The article describes attempts to avoid an outer box entirely in favor of
making the product manufacturer’s existing box “ship-ready” by itself. But
that box is usually decorated to show what is inside.

~~~
benj111
Perhaps. The article offers many options, and 'ship-ready' to me suggests at
the very least, much less branding.

