Invisible Logistics: How home delivery is rearranging the world
December 15, 2019 6:23 PM Subscribe
"The great trick of online retail has been to get us to do more shopping while thinking less about it – thinking less, in particular, about how our purchases reach our homes...It is as if we have forgotten that a product is an object moving through space, fighting gravity, air resistance and other forces of nature. Companies, though, are only too aware of it. While we choose and buy our purchases with mere inch-wide movements of our thumbs, they are busy rearranging the physical world so that our deliveries pelt towards us in ever-quicker time." How our home delivery habit reshaped the world, by Samanth Subramanian (Guardian longread).
Prime Leverage: how amazon uses its size and money to dominate the industry unfairly
posted by The Whelk at 8:52 PM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 8:52 PM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
When I visit more established friends and family, I am constantly astounded by the fairly constant flow of deliveries almost every day. If it's not something from Amazon it's Instacart or Grubhub or even a CSA delivery or something.
Granted I'm poor, but I might get two deliveries a year. I don't spend any time at all browsing or window shopping. If I'm ordering something online I pretty much know exactly what I want, and I really don't have the luxury of being able to order something sight unseen and deal with waiting for returns or mis-spent money if it doesn't fit or it's garbage.
I think that the home delivery idea has some merit for less carbon footprint and impact, but not the way we're doing it now.
The way we're doing it right now is just retail with extra steps, less worker protections, more worker abuses, a lot more packaging and possibly even more driving because most of these deliveries are optimized for time, not fuel or route efficiency.
And a hidden environmental impact is that Amazon and other delivery services are now contracting out deliveries to people who can't exactly afford to do it in a modern low emission car and are driving whatever beater they can afford right into the ground.
posted by loquacious at 9:12 PM on December 15, 2019 [7 favorites]
Granted I'm poor, but I might get two deliveries a year. I don't spend any time at all browsing or window shopping. If I'm ordering something online I pretty much know exactly what I want, and I really don't have the luxury of being able to order something sight unseen and deal with waiting for returns or mis-spent money if it doesn't fit or it's garbage.
I think that the home delivery idea has some merit for less carbon footprint and impact, but not the way we're doing it now.
The way we're doing it right now is just retail with extra steps, less worker protections, more worker abuses, a lot more packaging and possibly even more driving because most of these deliveries are optimized for time, not fuel or route efficiency.
And a hidden environmental impact is that Amazon and other delivery services are now contracting out deliveries to people who can't exactly afford to do it in a modern low emission car and are driving whatever beater they can afford right into the ground.
posted by loquacious at 9:12 PM on December 15, 2019 [7 favorites]
Even a beater produces less pollution per mile than a giant diesel powered panel van that is built to much less strict emissions standards. The extra carrying capacity probably evens things out on a per package basis, though. That's probably not much comfort to the kid who has their asthma exacerbated by the diesel's particulate or NOx emissions.
posted by wierdo at 9:52 PM on December 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by wierdo at 9:52 PM on December 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
This is an incredibly well researched and written article on a super interesting and important topic.
In medium density suburbs of major metro areas in the US -- where driving 10 miles to the nearest Target is a short errand -- home delivery of new lamp is probably more efficient from an environmental perspective all else being equal. But all else is seldom equal, for a number of reasons that are really well outlined in the articles (nature of the trips being replaced, induced demand for goods, returns, transport-costs baked into packaging etc.) It's a pretty difficult modeling problem is very hard.
In dense cities -- of which there are really very few in the US -- its mostly a net loss because the deliveries are mostly induced demand or else largely replacing walking, cycling, or transit trips. Short of a massive drop in individual consumption, the best solution is micro-consolidation. More Amazon lockers, more deliveries to local post offices and convenience stores, and maybe some new ideas.
I also really appreciate how relentlessly this article focuses on ops. Lots of people open an Amazon package with, say, a pair of earbuds and tut at the over-packaging. But they don't make the leap to understanding that the requirements of the box have much less to do with what's inside of it, and much more to do with the shelf that it has to sit on.
posted by voiceofreason at 3:33 AM on December 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
In medium density suburbs of major metro areas in the US -- where driving 10 miles to the nearest Target is a short errand -- home delivery of new lamp is probably more efficient from an environmental perspective all else being equal. But all else is seldom equal, for a number of reasons that are really well outlined in the articles (nature of the trips being replaced, induced demand for goods, returns, transport-costs baked into packaging etc.) It's a pretty difficult modeling problem is very hard.
In dense cities -- of which there are really very few in the US -- its mostly a net loss because the deliveries are mostly induced demand or else largely replacing walking, cycling, or transit trips. Short of a massive drop in individual consumption, the best solution is micro-consolidation. More Amazon lockers, more deliveries to local post offices and convenience stores, and maybe some new ideas.
I also really appreciate how relentlessly this article focuses on ops. Lots of people open an Amazon package with, say, a pair of earbuds and tut at the over-packaging. But they don't make the leap to understanding that the requirements of the box have much less to do with what's inside of it, and much more to do with the shelf that it has to sit on.
posted by voiceofreason at 3:33 AM on December 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
I was just thinking about the extremely peculiar setup of Amazon pickup stores yesterday after dropping off packaging for recycling. It is really weird to me that they built the robotic seeming pickup locker wall between the Amazon workers and the customers there to pick up packages. It all seems very techie with the lockers, UPC codes to unlock, smartphone this, smartphone that but it is essentially just counter service where the counter workers are hidden away and instead of a line for service there are just a bunch of people loitering waiting for a phone notification of "ready".
posted by srboisvert at 4:03 AM on December 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by srboisvert at 4:03 AM on December 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
I don't know. I walk to the supermarket, and the bookstore, and the artstore. But, only, 5% of my neighbors do. And I can only do it because I'm rich, childless, and have a spouse who agrees that access to public transit is a hundred times more valuable than a lawn. If you drive your SUV to the Trader Joe's, it'll take a lot to convince me that's in any way better than delivery. It's pretty indistinguishable from really inefficient delivery.
If warehouse workers and drivers were paid a living wage and benefits, hiring them to drop of 30 packages in a building instead of driving 30 cars to the department store doesn't seem like a bad idea. This really is a quantitative question. "Our patterns of buying are too numerous to be modelled wholesale" doesn't seem like an approach that will lead to a useful answer.
posted by eotvos at 8:41 AM on December 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
If warehouse workers and drivers were paid a living wage and benefits, hiring them to drop of 30 packages in a building instead of driving 30 cars to the department store doesn't seem like a bad idea. This really is a quantitative question. "Our patterns of buying are too numerous to be modelled wholesale" doesn't seem like an approach that will lead to a useful answer.
posted by eotvos at 8:41 AM on December 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
If you drive your SUV to the Trader Joe's, it'll take a lot to convince me that's in any way better than delivery.
Not only that, the majority of people all go to Trader Joes (or wherever) at the same time since the default is that large numbers of people work approximately 8am -6pm, so therefore most people go to the store after that. So roads/the size of the store/everything has to be upsized to support these irregular mass crunches of population. So package delivery is probably a solid order of magnitude more efficient since they occur over a large time period each day. It doesn't just matter that people drive -it matters when you drive too.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:01 AM on December 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
Not only that, the majority of people all go to Trader Joes (or wherever) at the same time since the default is that large numbers of people work approximately 8am -6pm, so therefore most people go to the store after that. So roads/the size of the store/everything has to be upsized to support these irregular mass crunches of population. So package delivery is probably a solid order of magnitude more efficient since they occur over a large time period each day. It doesn't just matter that people drive -it matters when you drive too.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:01 AM on December 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
I couldnt tell for sure if this is addressed in the article, but another problem with how deliverable everything is, is that it's really easy to expend resources/money on stuff that probably shouldn't exist to be purchased in the first place. The example I saw recently was pet costumes. Hundreds on amazon with next day delivery! Before amazon and the interwebz, it's not like getting in the car and driving to your local (or remote!) pet costume store was even a choice you had available. Maybe a catalog business out of cali or vermont? so the degree of saturation, barriers to entry, and net resource loss to stupid brainless consumption was waaaaaay less.
posted by hearthpig at 2:41 PM on December 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by hearthpig at 2:41 PM on December 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
I cancelled Prime about a year ago and starting making a weekly errand run out to Target, etc with my wife. It may not be better for the environment, but getting out of the house and into civilization a bit sure is good for my mental health.
posted by COD at 4:53 PM on December 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by COD at 4:53 PM on December 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
most of these deliveries are optimized for time, not fuel or route efficiency
Because what the hell, Amazon? I resist impulse buying in general, and I can always wait a few days to get my order. How come I can't opt for lower cost delivery and longer wait times? I'd also be completely happy to wait a couple of extra days while enough orders pile up for my neighbourhood to make an efficient delivery run.
[looks up at framed pic of Ned Ludd]
posted by sneebler at 12:02 PM on December 20, 2019 [3 favorites]
Because what the hell, Amazon? I resist impulse buying in general, and I can always wait a few days to get my order. How come I can't opt for lower cost delivery and longer wait times? I'd also be completely happy to wait a couple of extra days while enough orders pile up for my neighbourhood to make an efficient delivery run.
[looks up at framed pic of Ned Ludd]
posted by sneebler at 12:02 PM on December 20, 2019 [3 favorites]
« Older No Gritty, so this list is invalid | A Space Age Xmas soundtrack from Esquivel! Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
For instance, is it a net environmental good or bad that I've switched to having the dog food delivered directly to our house instead of driving a tiny bit more whenever we run out? (I suspect the extra cardboard involved means it's worse, but on the other hand, there's no intermediate distribution step out to a brick and mortar location that's also keeping the lights on, and from a strictly environmental perspective maybe that's a good thing?) I appreciate the direct link to the PDF study of last-mile carbon footprints, but like the author, I'm dismayed it's from ten years ago, and wish I had a clearer view into these sorts of questions.
posted by deludingmyself at 7:09 PM on December 15, 2019 [3 favorites]