

Weekly free delivery service from Amazon.com: AmazonTote - ashishbharthi
http://tote.amazon.com/AmazonToteLearnMore

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erikpukinskis
This is a great step.

I think what would complete this is if you could leave items in the bag that
you sell on Amazon Marketplace, and Amazon would pick them up and deliver them
to the buyer.

Then you'd potentially have a packaging-less, production-free, nearly energy-
ideal system for moving around used goods.

Imagine instead of having a tag sale, you'd just scan everything you want to
get rid of into Amazon, and they'd come pick things up as they find new homes
for them.

Add in automatic market-based pricing, and you basically have near perfect
liquidity for used goods. That'd be radical.

The step after that is just to allow people to distribute home-produced goods.
Harvest tomatoes from your back yard on ToteDay, drop them into Amazon mini-
totes, and have them delivered, at market prices, to people in your area.

It'd be like the economics of the App Store applied to all goods.

Shit, I'm going to go apply for a job at Amazon.

~~~
InclinedPlane
You can already ship all of your Marketplace items to Amazon and they'll sit
in their warehouses and be packaged and shipped by Amazon for you, for a fee
of course.

See: [http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by-
amazon....](http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by-amazon.htm)

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ben1040
One day in and the Woot acquisition is already bearing fruit -- Amazon is now
selling Woot's famous "bags of crap."

Being Prime subscribers, my wife and I get a shipment from Amazon usually on a
weekly basis. I might try this just because I'm sick of throwing away Amazon
boxes. Bags I can send back seems like a nice idea.

edit: Bad design on the part of Amazon. It lets me sign in with my account to
see when my delivery dates would be, and even gives me an answer once I've
signed in. However it doesn't tell me that all of the shipping addresses on my
account are thousands of miles away from the only place the service is
offered.

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waterlesscloud
"Currently, AmazonTote is available in the 98112 ZIP code."

~~~
blasdel
Likely soon to expand to more of the AmazonFresh delivery area:

    
    
      98004, 98005*, 98006*, 98007, 98008,  98011, 98012,  98019,
      98021, 98024*, 98027*, 98028, 98029*, 98033, 98034,  98039,
      98040, 98052,  98053,  98056, 98057,  98059, 98065,  98072, 98074,
      98075, 98077,  98101,  98102, 98103,  98104, 98105,  98106, 98107,
      98108, 98109,  98112*, 98115, 98116,  98117, 98118*, 98119,
      98121, 98122*, 98125,  98126, 98133,  98136, 98144*, 98146,
      98155, 98164,  98178,  98199
    
    

A subset of Amazon-fulfilled items hand delivered to my doorstep? I already
get that directly from AmazonFresh, where I use such purchases to boost my
order size to get free grocery delivery.

It's especially useful when buying booze from them, where the order size
minimums are much higher because the delivery must be attended — instead just
leaving it in a plastic crate at my doorstep, _the driver puts it in my fridge
for me_.

I probably won't ever use this unless it covers close to the full set of
Prime-eligble items, which would involve them keeping no local inventory
unlike what they're doing with Fresh already.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Note: this is not a subset of Amazon-fulfilled items as with AmazonFresh, this
is pretty close to everything that Amazon ships. (It's basically just Amazon
delivering otherwise super-saver shipments the last mile to your door using
their own trucks, where available).

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csmeder
Who Remembers <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo.com> :)

note: Don't take the above comment to mean I think Amazon is going to fail
with this. 10 years ago an unknown company couldn't make this work. Im sure
Amazon will do fine in Seattle with this.

~~~
SkyMarshal
I remember Kozmo. I also remember they had a competitor in NYC, but I can't
recall its name. I just remember having them bring me some delicious
lobster&steak from Fulton Fish Market or somewhere. Anyone remember their
name?

~~~
transatlantic
Urbanfetch, I believe.

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frossie
Ironically, I feel so bad when I order five things in one order (ship when
everything is ready, free shipping) and them Amazon sends me five different
packages at great expense, that I am almost relieved they are offering this.

~~~
sliverstorm
Absolutely; same here. I try to group my shipments even though shipping cost
is no longer an issue with Prime. In reality they probably have a deal worked
out so that 2-day shipping doesn't cost practically anything, but I still feel
that guilt when the expedite that $3.35 item to me. I wonder if guilt's part
of the Prime business strategy? I still haven't figured out how it works out
in their favor (which it has to, or they wouldn't offer it)

~~~
diskrete
There is also the guilt of having an item flown across the country and
delivered by truck. An item that costs $10 and is readily available at a store
1/2 mile from your house. I’ve done that, because I can be done with it in two
minutes and forget about it.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_is readily available at a store 1/2 mile from your house._

How did that item get to the store?

~~~
pdebruic
True. But it was probably accompanied with many other copies of itself. Also
the truck arriving at the store likely delivered more cargo per mile driven
than a UPS/FedEx/Mail equivalent. Those services are more expensive
($/gasoline/packaging/...) than just shipping a truck full of toothpaste to a
distribution center and then hundreds of tubes to a multitude of stores
because of the piecemeal fashion in which they pick up and drop off at the
ends of their networks.

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tnorthcutt
I don't see the benefits for someone with Amazon prime. Am I missing
something?

~~~
jackowayed
I don't think it's really aimed at Amazon Prime people.

I think it's really to get people to order more from Amazon, even for orders
<$25. Tote will probably cost them enough that those orders don't make them
anything, but it will build loyalty (and they let you keep the tote bag--keeps
Amazon in your mind).

~~~
d2viant
Will it really cost them that much more though? Since they assign your "Tote
Day" for you, it seems like they could save a ton of money on the efficiencies
gained in their delivery/location scheduler.

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rdl
This definitely makes me miss the plastic WebVan crates (I think I accumulated
>40 of them).

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aspiringsensei
I wonder: Is Amazon now trying to compete with Fedex? What's the benefit to
them of building out a shipping network on top of their distribution network?

I'm sure there's some margin that could be potentially captured - and it might
be neat to be dealing just with amazon - but why not focus on stuff that
doesn't involve becoming a competitor to established shipping services. In my
view, the US Postal services are already kind of underpriced....

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jsz0
I love the idea of it but at the same time I feel like most items you require
on a weekly basis should really be obtained in a more sustainable way. It's
wonderful we can (currently) afford this luxury of putting items on an
airplane, flying them to a local hub, and driving them right to your house
twice a week but there's more to consider than just the cost of the service
itself.

~~~
qq66
The sustainability of Amazon-style shipping is pretty complicated. If you buy
items on Amazon, yes, they must be shipped, but you can bet that Amazon will
find the cheapest (and likely relatively low-energy) way of shipping it to
you.

Meanwhile, you don't have to have as many physical retail stores, which
consume tremendous amounts of electricity, and contribute to the suburban
sprawl that causes "car culture."

~~~
jsz0
It's definitely complicated. I was thinking of a few different scenarios and
in some cases it's not clear that local distribution is always a better route.
For example if your local store gets a shipment of 100 items and only sells 10
what happens to the other 90? Do they get shipped back? Thrown away? Who
knows... If the UPS truck happens to be down the street and needs to go 1 mile
out of its way to make a delivery to me that's better than my own 10 mile
trip. Even with your example of less physical stores we'd have to consider
that means less jobs, less revenue for the town in the form of property taxes
when the business closes, less sales tax for the state -- apparently Amazon
only charges sales tax in 5 states.

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wrs
I live in 98112 and nothing is showing the Tote button, even items with local
same-day delivery available (another fine Amazon perk for Seattle residents).
Where are the Tote-able items hiding?

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jlsnyder
I like the idea. Too bad they aren't running it in my area. I reusable tote
would save a lot of boxes.

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BirdWatcher
It seems to me they are trying to cut out logistics here. No longer needing a
courier in many cities will lower costs dramatically,.

~~~
studer
Looks like it's operated by these guys (who are described as an "amazon
affiliate" in the FAQ):

<http://fresh.amazon.com/>

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joshbert
There's a small typo in there. It's supposed to be "Shop Until You're Cut Off"
if I'm not mistaken.

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gommm
No, the cutoff date is the date and time by which you can't add anymore things
to the tote-bag (ie. in this case 10 a.m. 2 days before your delivery day).

~~~
joshbert
You're right, I read that in the wrong context. Thanks for clearing it up for
me.

