Reply With QuoteAmazon buy standard exterior size parcels with bespoke internal packing to fit the item you are buying. This keeps the price down which, I would imagine, keeps you happy.
Amazon have very profligate packaging ideas! Yesterday I ordered a 7lb sledgehammer which (fair play) was delivered just now. Whilst I understand that sledgehammers are not the most straightforward items to pack, the packaging this sledgehammer arrived in left me speechless, it was bloody enormous!
The hammer itself is 35” long and the head is 6 1/4” wide and 2 1/4” thick, the box it arrived in was, I kid you not, 68” long, 21” wide and 5” thick!!!! The sledgehammer looks like a chopstick stood next to it! I wish I knew an easy way to post iPhone pics on here, you would laugh!
Amazon buy standard exterior size parcels with bespoke internal packing to fit the item you are buying. This keeps the price down which, I would imagine, keeps you happy.
Not particularly environmentally sustainable or responsible though is it?Originally Posted by Mick P
Maybe so but why did they not use such tailored packaging in this case? There was no bespoke internal packaging, just yards and yards of paper to try to prevent the hammer flying about in this absurdly oversized box?
How does bespoke interior packaging keep the price down?
Yards and yards of paper is cheap as is a standard sized box. A bespoke size box made in relatively low quantities would be very expensive.
Cost has always been the driving force in packaging.
Whilst tbe size and quantity may be a bit mad in this case, at least 95% of all packing Amazon use is cardboard and paper - all 100% recyclable anywhere in the UK.
I would rather more paper than less polystyrene.
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So the bespoke interior packaging is just scrunched up paper?
I can see their logic but it's still wrong on so many levels, just like the company themselves.
As said above, Amazon's increasing market share, year on year, suggests that UK customers care more about low prices than environmental sustainability or efficiency. As long as that is the case, one cannot criticise Amazon for meeting the demand function.
If you feel strongly about it, take positive action. It's no good moaning here unless you just enjoy a moan.
You could buy some shares in Amazon and that will entitle you to raise the topic at their next AGM.
Don’t agree with this view. Just because customers want low prices, that doesn’t justify amazon’s practices here. They should act responsibly and package with the least amount of waste and charge appropriately
Why? Why should they put up their prices, contrary to demand and potentially to the detriment of a customer base that is clearly price over environment focused? That would be commercial suicide.
I'm no Amazon fan, by the way, and our ire is rightly directed at them on account of their tax practices but, once again, that is Amazon working a system that is unfit for purpose.
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I'm not sure what dictionary you use but my post wasn't anywhere near the definition of moan.
I could just refuse to buy anything from amazon, which is what I do and have done for the past 7 years.
I’ll call you on this. Aside from the fact that bespoke anything isn’t going to be cost effective, most of what I receive from Amazon comes in vastly oversized boxes filled with screwed up brown paper. It’s neither effective nor cost effective and it certainly isn’t environmentally friendly.
Careful, he once won a jlc in a game of poker.
Sledgehammer, go to Screwfix ;)
Precisely !
They’ve reduced the packaging since but years ago when I purchased an SD card the box it arrived in as almost 18” by 12” by 4”.
In that case, write to Amazon and tell them that you are a packaging expert and with your knowledge you are going to make their internals more cost effective. They will almost certainly call you in and the rest is down to you. You could make an absolute fortune.
I can't comment on the environmental issues but all large companies aim to be CSR purely because by doing so it will attract more customers. However I am arguing purely cost and nearly all packaging is priced down to the nth degree and that is why you have small goods packed in what appears to be oversize packets.
Last edited by Mick P; 19th May 2019 at 16:06.
Firstly this is not the BP, so please do your slagging off over there. Secondly you seem to know more about the cost of packaging than Amazons experts, so you really should contact them.
The issue with that is by ordering from Amazon, (even if it does come in a box that you could almost hide a pony in) I get it delivered next day and do not have to go anywhere! For all those interested (Zzzzzzzz) the sledgehammer is fine and not at all stressed by the packaging experience!
But the size of the packaging is only a tiny part of the equation.
Amazon are experts at logistics, and having a limited number of (carefully chosen) box sizes means that they can (1) automate much of their packing and (2) maximise the number of deliveries they can fit in to each van/lorry/ship/plane. The tiny amount of extra cardboard/paper involved for those items which are just too big for the next smaller sized box is more than made up for by needing less transportation to move them around. And it also makes it more environmentally friendly.
Amazon's primary motivation may be profit (or increasing shareholder value), but you don't achieve that by wasting materials or resources - so the end result is actually effective, cost effective and environmentally friendly!
I'd accept that POV if the tolerances were smaller, but on a regular basis that's not the case; I consistently receive tiny items in colossal boxes, chock full of screwed up paper. It suggests that the management of logistics isn't as tight as it should/might be so I stand by my earlier comments.
Is that not the point at which a debate ends, when discussion becomes argument?
I think what Mick P and I are saying boils down to us making a similar point. Amazon has clearly, without question, at enormous length and no doubt huge expense, considered the question of what is the best way for them to send out goods in a way that a) attracts customers b) minimises their overheads and c) doesn't destroy custom for them. It is ultracrepedarianism at its finest for people to jump on an internet forum and suggest that their own dissatisfaction with the way something is suggests that there *must* be a better way. It isn't that simple.
It really isn't for me or Mick P to justify Amazon. I offered my view as a counterpoint to provoke thought. That won't work. I'll leave it to the thoughtless bods at a $250 billion turnover company to be persuaded that they're going about their business model the wrong way.
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Ah, got you... large companies are always run in such a way that they can't become more efficient. I must tell my clients next time they ask me for advice (and as for ultracrepidarianism, please don't try to guess my areas of expertise - you know nothing about me).
You're right about my earlier comment, incidentally. Just goes to show that none of us are perfect.
None of us *is* perfect.
But it was logistics, not grammar, that made Jeff Bezos one of the richest people on earth.
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Logistics is a precise science and the cost of parcel deliveries are based on a combination of size. weight, materials and internals. Any company such as Amazon who is despatching millions of parcels each year has algorithms that with calculate the cheapest way of delivering any given product based on its size, weight, shape and fragility.
If you were to visit Amazon's despatch department, there is not a chance in a million that you could suggest a change in their methodology to reduce costs.
We want cheap products and Amazon deliver cheap products and the proof is in their ever increasing market share. Basically you have got to live with their bulky parcels stuffed with screwed up paper or pay more for the product.
They've lost my business on a number of occasions because an item is 'too large' for delivery to our local Amazon Locker. On every occasion it wouldn't have been too large if they had used suitably sized packing. I'm happy to pay more and go elsewhere.
As said before, I am not taking environmental issues into account, purely the cost. The environmental issue is a totally different subject and yes I suspect there is some room for improvement.
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