Thoughts about same day delivery

[iamthewalrus_3]

@constanze

First, I consider driving brick-mortar stores out of Business a very bad Thing.

That’s fine, and while I don’t think it’s as bad a thing as you do, that’s a reasonable position. But that issue is entirely separate from whether or not same-day delivery will cause traffic problems.

It’s disingenuous to claim that same day delivery causes traffic problems because you dislike the other effects of it.

Second, how do you know that your delivery will be combined? The whole reason same-day delivery is problematic compared to normal mail is that it isn’t combined, but driven seperatly. Otherwise, they can’t make it the same day.

One Person orders at 11 am, the Driver leaves at 12 for your street. Next house orders at 1 pm, Driver leaves at 2 pm - seperate trips.

In any reasonably dense urban region (which is where Amazon is actually rolling out same-day delivery), the volume is high enough that orders can be combined. The few next-day packages I’ve gotten from Amazon were delivered by vehicles carrying multiple packages.

Plus, even if it’s not combined, it’s still no worse than me going to get it. If I order one thing for next-day, then that’s replacing one trip to the store that day with one trip by a courier. No additional traffic.

It’s that difficult to plan to buy groceries, toothpaste and a big parcel of diapers once a week? What? I’m a single household, too, and I try to shop Saturday morning early because that’s easiest with work during the day. (Granted, I don’t cook, but I can still plan how much milk etc. I will Need for one whole week.)

I think you misunderstand my point. I do that too. As I joked at the end of my post, I’m not ordering diapers for next-day delivery. I already know in advance that I need to buy diapers. But I did, for example, buy a replacement router with one-day delivery a few months ago. Because my router died and I needed a new one.

And, also: I’m a planner, as apparently are you. Many people are not. It’s all well and good to say that people should plan their purchases, but many don’t. They end up driving to the store quite often. Same-day delivery should be judged against people’s actual behavior, not their hypothetical best behavior. If everyone planned well enough to do all their shopping efficiently in one trip per week or two, then the benefits of same-day delivery would be much lower. But they don’t.

If one single trip to the store (by car) takes 20 minutes, your infrastructure is bad.

But why is it a seperate trip? Can’t you shop before/ after driving to work? Can’t you shop once a week? I don’t quite understand the logistic difficulty assuming you aren’t out in the boondooks (and then, do you have good Internet Access?).

20 minutes isn’t really that long. It takes me, absolute best case scenario, about 5 minutes to put my shoes on, walk to the garage, pull the car out, turn around, drive to the store, park, walk to the store, and another 5 to do the same in reverse. That gives 10 minutes to find the thing I need and buy it. So, the best case for me personally is probably around 12 minutes if I know where the thing is, or find a helpful employee quickly, and I don’t have to wait long to buy things.

But that’s if the thing I need is sold at the closest grocery store. If I have to go to a pharmacy, the one-way trip is up to around 7 minutes. Auto parts are also about 7 minutes, and electronics for remotely reasonable prices is about 12 minutes away.

And it also assumes that I don’t have to wait in line, that I either called ahead to make sure they had the thing or just hoped they’d have it in stock.

Yes, I could go on the way home from work (sometimes, it depends on the store). But then I’m doing my shopping at 5:45 or so on a weeknight. In my experience, that is when stores are the busiest, so while I save a bit on transit time, I spend more waiting in line.

Compare to the maybe three minutes it takes me to pull my phone out, search for the thing, and click buy. This is not a hard call.

But the question was about everyday normal purchases - the mass of purchases, not the 1% exception of things that are urgent.

It was? Is there reason to believe that people are getting the mass of purchases delivered same-day?

[Dewey_Finn]

@MandaJo

I would assume there are meaningful savings for Amazon in terms of storage: assuming you have to have local distribution centers anyway, you can keep them smaller if you’re so streamlined that stuff goes out almost instantly.

A couple of years ago, an Amazon patent described the idea of anticipatory shipping, in which they’d ship stuff to a customer even before they’d order it. A related idea was to ship stuff to a neighborhood, expecting that someone there would order it very soon.

[constanze]

@iamthewalrus_3

That’s fine, and while I don’t think it’s as bad a thing as you do, that’s a reasonable position. But that issue is entirely separate from whether or not same-day delivery will cause traffic problems.

Same-day delivery is additional to normal mail, so increasing the volume of it will create more traffic Problems than staying with normal mail.

It’s disingenuous to claim that same day delivery causes traffic problems because you dislike the other effects of it.

But that’s not my Claim. I said that there are several negative effects, and listed them.

In any reasonably dense urban region (which is where Amazon is actually rolling out same-day delivery), the volume is high enough that orders can be combined. The few next-day packages I’ve gotten from Amazon were delivered by vehicles carrying multiple packages.

If it’s only used in dense urban regions, and not rural places where a trip to the shop is Long/ difficult, then it makes even less sense to me.

Plus, even if it’s not combined, it’s still no worse than me going to get it. If I order one thing for next-day, then that’s replacing one trip to the store that day with one trip by a courier. No additional traffic.

It’s only a direct replacement if you had taken one extra trip for that one item, instead of planning. And I already excluded emergency stuff, as instances where same-day does make sense.

But Amazon is trying to muscle into the grocery Business especially - where freshness is important, hence “next Day” in urban places, where I don’t see the benefit over a planned trip for a dozen items.

But I did, for example, buy a replacement router with one-day delivery a few months ago. Because my router died and I needed a new one.

And I said that for emergencies, it’s useful.

But that wasn’t the OPs question. He asked about whether, by getting rid of the extra fee for same-day - to cover the extra costs of extra trucks + Drivers in Addition to normal mail - Amazon + co. are putting costs elsewhere.
If same-day carries an extra fee, customers will think twice if it’s worth it. If it costs the same, People will use it in large amounts - which is the intent of Amazon, in order to drive brick-mortars out of Business.

This increase in volume, from maybe 1% of all delivery, to 90% of delivery will cause both Problems to brick mortar stores, and to traffic.
That’s the Problems I have.

And, also: I’m a planner, as apparently are you. Many people are not. It’s all well and good to say that people should plan their purchases, but many don’t. They end up driving to the store quite often. Same-day delivery should be judged against people’s actual behavior, not their hypothetical best behavior. If everyone planned well enough to do all their shopping efficiently in one trip per week or two, then the benefits of same-day delivery would be much lower. But they don’t.

There’s a difference between saying “People are disorganized” and saying “let’s exploits people’s laziness / lack of planning by inducing them to be more lazy, even if it’s bad for Society and Environment”.
The opposite would be the City council / urban planners saying “People are disorganized, and infrastructure of Shops is bad, how can we improve that? If we build walkways and pedestrian zones, will People walk more (Healthier)?”

It was? Is there reason to believe that people are getting the mass of purchases delivered same-day?

At the Moment, as Long as same-day costs extra (just like mail express delivery costs more), most People don’t think it’s worth it. But the OP has noticed a trend of Amazon + co. offering same-day for the same Price as normal. And that incentives People to frivously waste resources.

[constanze]

@begbert2

Well, there’s also the stuff that simply isn’t available locally. I am burdened with several hobbies (well, my wallet thinks it’s a burden), and at least half of them would be severely hampered were I unable to ship stuff in.

Hey, I know about that, too. Not Hobbies, but the cheapest way of getting english books, especially older ones, is via Internet - because Amazon has a .de branch, I don’t have to pay customs and Import-VAT on them, but German bookstores have to. Back in the 80s, before Amazon, buying an english book in a German book store, the Pound Price was double the simple converted Price.

Based on the above posts, the strong impression I get is that people use next-day-air because they don’t see disadvantages - they don’t find it significantly more expensive than two-day-air or snail mail, and it’s marginally more convenient, so why not?

They don’t see the disadvantages because they don’t think about the effects of mass same-day delivery on infrastructure and workers.

Both the free shippers and the next-day-airers are quite likely (and in my case, certainly) consuming resources that other people are paying for, and we’re doing it because Amazon is transparently redirecting/absorbing those extra costs.

Yes - costs, especially negative consequences, are “socialized” - spread onto the Population as a whole.

I don’t really consider that a bad thing. The only part that would be worrisome to me is if the additional costs incurred are environmental - if Amazon ships each package in a separate trip via Hummer for example. Or if they flood the skies with package-and-spy-camera packing drones. Stuff like that, that society suffers for, would be bad.

But that is the likely outcome, if there is no direct downside - a higher fee - for same-day, then most customes will do it out of laziness. (And later complain about the side-effects on Society).

And of course I do like to support my local stores - on the condition they actually stock what I want to buy.

That’s why I buy only stuff on the Internet I can’t get in my local Supermarket/ department store.

[begbert2]

@constanze

But that is the likely outcome, if there is no direct downside - a higher fee - for same-day, then most customes will do it out of laziness. (And later complain about the side-effects on Society).

How you determine that this outcome (that additional environmental/societal costs result from same day delivery) is likely?

I mean, don’t get me wrong - I’m not a fan of same-day delivery or anything (and even if I was it’s never been offered to me as an option), but the claim that Amazon is putting multiple packages on a truck sounds both reasonable and plausible. Amazon is a business, and they’re going to do what they can to keep their own costs low. Which means that in the real world they’re not using hummers to deliver individual books one at a time.

It’s also quite reasonable to point out that, in areas where people drive to shop, there would be less drivers on the road if amazon had ten drivers delivering a hundred books than if the hundred shoppers each drove to the store separately. You don’t even have to chuck that many boxes on the truck for the enviromental savings to become clear, at least as regard to cars on the road and mileage driven.

So, barring spycam-laden drones, what exernalities are actually predictable?

[boffking]

@Dewey_Finn

A couple of years ago, an Amazon patent described the idea of anticipatory shipping, in which they’d ship stuff to a customer even before they’d order it.

I work for a company that already does something like this. We are a dealer of copiers and printers, and have software that tracks our customer’s toner levels. Once the toner reaches a predetermined low point, we ship them a new cartridge automatically. Although toner is included in the service contract they are already paying for.

[Voyager]

@constanze

Experts have Long suggested, especially together with the housing crisis after the house bubble burst, and now many houses are Standing empty, to completly re-design cities and Suburbs for Close foot-traffic and public Transport. The benefits would not only be less exhaust/ pollution from cars and less oil, but also more time saved without traffic jams, more community Feeling if there is a pedestrian Zone with all main Shops in Walking distance, street artists etc.

You should read the gentrification thread. More and more people are moving back into cities - and displacing poor people. They get screwed in any case. Even suburban places are building multi-family units, like apartments and condos, near public transportation.

In dense environments, like cities, a few multidrop delivery vehicles are going to be a lot more efficient than lots of cars. Not everyone can walk to the store, especially if the product they are buying is large. I haven’t been to Munich in 35 years, but the last time I was in Berlin I doubt a car could get all that far in 10 minutes. Definitely not in New York, where parking is also going to be a big problem.
And not every store has everything. Before online shopping I used to have to visit many stores in the mall to find something or compare prices. That at least did not use up gas, but it was often necessary to drive to several shopping centers. Amazon delivery is a lot more efficient than that. I needed a watchband, and was at the mall anyway, so I tried several stores, none of which had it. Ordering it from Amazon was a lot faster.

And let’s not forget the people who might find getting to a B&M store difficult, and walking to one nearly impossible. Home delivery is a blessing for them. None of us are getting any younger, it will be a blessing for us too, soon enough.
Home delivery is actually a reversion to the pre-supermarket and mall era. In my parents’ lifetime you could get the store to deliver your purchases to you, often same day. So Amazon is bringing us back to a better time.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@constanze

Same-day delivery is additional to normal mail, so increasing the volume of it will create more traffic Problems than staying with normal mail.

I’m saying this is the wrong comparison. Same-day delivery isn’t a replacement for waiting longer. It’s a replacement for going somewhere to buy something that day. If I don’t need it today, then I won’t go get it today.

If it’s only used in dense urban regions, and not rural places where a trip to the shop is Long/ difficult, then it makes even less sense to me.

Long/difficult is relative. As I pointed out, even a very close store takes much longer than pulling out my phone. It’s only used in dense urban regions because that’s the only place the economics work out, because there are enough customers to be able to combine shipments. Which, again, makes it more efficient than trips to the store, not less.

It’s only a direct replacement if you had taken one extra trip for that one item, instead of planning. And I already excluded emergency stuff, as instances where same-day does make sense.

You’re comparing apples and oranges. Yes, planning is better than not planning. But you can already get a discount ordering online if you plan ahead. People ordering things for quick delivery have already failed the plan ahead step (or been unable to due to unforeseen circumstances).

So, when you need something today/tomorrow, do you:

1. Go to the store to get it today
2. Order it delivered quickly.

Pointing out that you should have bought in bulk a week ago might be true, but so what? Unless you have a time machine, your options are the two above. And #2 is better than #1 in many many cases.

But that wasn’t the OPs question. He asked about whether, by getting rid of the extra fee for same-day - to cover the extra costs of extra trucks + Drivers in Addition to normal mail - Amazon + co. are putting costs elsewhere.

That was one thing that the OP mentioned, in a post that touched on many different aspects of same-day shipping. I didn’t read his post or this thread as specifically focused on that one issue.

If same-day carries an extra fee, customers will think twice if it’s worth it. If it costs the same, People will use it in large amounts - which is the intent of Amazon, in order to drive brick-mortars out of Business.

Maybe I’m confused:

This increase in volume, from maybe 1% of all delivery, to 90% of delivery will cause both Problems to brick mortar stores, and to traffic.

Agreed on the first. Disagree on the second.

There’s a difference between saying “People are disorganized” and saying “let’s exploits people’s laziness / lack of planning by inducing them to be more lazy, even if it’s bad for Society and Environment”.
The opposite would be the City council / urban planners saying “People are disorganized, and infrastructure of Shops is bad, how can we improve that? If we build walkways and pedestrian zones, will People walk more (Healthier)?”

I don’t agree that providing timely delivery of things people buy qualifies as “exploiting people’s laziness” or “bad for Society”, although I understand where you’re coming from.

If we may step back a moment: what is it that you think Amazon’s responsibility is here? I agree that the city council should do a better job with civil engineering, but, since they haven’t, does that obligate Amazon to ship things slowly? I don’t see how they’re the bad guy here.

Local shops have provided delivery services for as long as local shops have been a thing. If a local shop were to use free delivery as a loss-leader to gain business, would that be exploiting people’s laziness and bad for society and a harbinger of terrible traffic? Or is it only bad when Amazon does it?

But the OP has noticed a trend of Amazon + co. offering same-day for the same Price as normal. And that incentives People to frivously waste resources.

I disagree that it’s a frivolous waste of resources. My time is a valuable resource, and I hire people to do things that save me time regularly, and many of those services for sure increase traffic. If I hire a house cleaner, that’s more cars on the road. If I hire someone to mow my lawn, more cars. If I instead did my own cleaning and mowed my own lawn, no one would be driving anywhere. Hiring someone to do my shopping (which takes my car off the road) seems like the least objectionable of jobs one might hire out, from a traffic perspective.

[dalej42]

This really does seem like the ultimate first world problem. I order almost everything online, including groceries and I live in a very urban area. I use Amazon quite frequently and I’ll take same day delivery if it is available. Most of the time, it is 2 day delivery for free with prime and that often includes delivery on Sunday. I will pick their deliver it later if it is something I don’t need quickly and I take their $1 credit towards Kindle books.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@iamthewalrus_3

Maybe I’m confused:

Apologies for the half-thought. That was supposed to be: Amazon charges more for fast shipping. The fact that they charge the same amount more for 1-day and 2-day shipping in some cases doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to get pushed to free same-day shipping.

It probably means that the logistics algorithm realized that there’s still space on the truck going out tomorrow, and the item ordered is in stock at the warehouse it’s loading from.

[constanze]

Apparently my Points were not clear enough.

1. I’m not saying “all online Shopping is bad”. I’m saying: If you live outside a town, so a shop is far away/ you’re not mobile/ you Need Special items that aren’t offered by Shops nearby - then ordering online (by catalogue) is a sensible, often the only, Option.

2. I’m not saying “People should never use same-day/ express delivery” I’m saying that same-day/ express should be reserved for Special circumstances.

Because it costs extra to pay a delivery Company / pay the added Charge for mail Service, this extra Charge should be added to same-day delivery.

So all those examples above don’t apply to my Statements.

Now, to what I’m talking about:
if online stores, and yes, especially Amazon, are offering either free-delivery, or same-day delivery without extra fee, especially/ only in urban places - not applying to 1 - then there can be only two ways to achieve this:
A. The store is eating the cost at first, in order to drive brick-mortar competition out of Business. Once they have most of the market cornered*, they can raise Prices to the real cost.
B. Instead of making the cost transparent, and letting only those who Need the Service pay for it, they raise all product Prices by 0.30 / all delivery fees by 2, to cover the 6$ extra fee it used to be - making everybody pay for a few.

Trying to drive brick-mortar out of Business is bad; succeeding is worse.

*It’s not necessary to own 100% of the market to be a de-facto Monopolist. Windows doesn’t own the OS market - but they control enough.

So the OP is right that nothing is free - it’s just that the costs are hidden, and many consumers don’t care what those hidden costs are.

[constanze]

@begbert2

How you determine that this outcome (that additional environmental/societal costs result from same day delivery) is likely?

I mean, don’t get me wrong - I’m not a fan of same-day delivery or anything (and even if I was it’s never been offered to me as an option), but the claim that Amazon is putting multiple packages on a truck sounds both reasonable and plausible. Amazon is a business, and they’re going to do what they can to keep their own costs low. Which means that in the real world they’re not using hummers to deliver individual books one at a time.

Partly, it depends on what exactly they offer. If it’s “same-day actually means order until 1 pm, delivery till 7 pm, only urban Centers with short drives” then it’s not full “same-day delivery” (Also not useful to rural People, where online Shopping is necessary via mail; or for real emergencies at 9 pm on Saturday. Do private delivery companies deliver on Sunday, too?)

It’s also quite reasonable to point out that, in areas where people drive to shop, there would be less drivers on the road if amazon had ten drivers delivering a hundred books than if the hundred shoppers each drove to the store separately. You don’t even have to chuck that many boxes on the truck for the enviromental savings to become clear, at least as regard to cars on the road and mileage driven.

Amazon isn’t doing this because it’s the best Option for the community or the Environment or the customers. They are using the laziness of customers to

• induce them to buy spontaneous, without thinking “Do I Need this? Right now? Would another item be cheaper/ better quality? Is this cheap crap that lasts only 2 weeks? Can I afford it right now or should I wait two weeks?”

• driving competition out of Business, so they can raise Prices.

So, barring spycam-laden drones, what exernalities are actually predictable?

The Problem with the drones is not spycam-laden, but poorly regulated = high risk of crashes.

The spying Problem is: if you go to a shop and pay with cash, and don’t use a rewards Card, nobody knows that you bought a Playboy/ lube/ alcohol.
If you shop online, Amazon has all that Information. They not only datamine that to make you the “if you liked item X, you might also like item Y” offers. They can also be hacked, or be ordered to turn the data over to law. How much that is a Problem is difficult to determine.

[constanze]

@iamthewalrus_3

I don’t agree that providing timely delivery of things people buy qualifies as “exploiting people’s laziness” or “bad for Society”, although I understand where you’re coming from.

Again, to repeat: It’s not about same-day/ express itself. It’s about suddenly offering it without additional fee - though the extra cost is still there.

If we may step back a moment: what is it that you think Amazon’s responsibility is here? I agree that the city council should do a better job with civil engineering, but, since they haven’t, does that obligate Amazon to ship things slowly? I don’t see how they’re the bad guy here.

Actually for me it’s a textbook example of why “small government” doesn’t mean “more freedom”. You can either have an elected City council, responsible to their voters, who employ experts (City planning, architecture, sociologists) to plan Long-term on how to re-structure cities for Maximum benefits of People (while leaving Options for the minorities)

Or you can have a non-elected Company, that is responsible only to shareholders (and barely at that), that only cares about Profit, and is ready to ignore 20% of People with Special wishes in order to make easy Money on the 80%
E.g. if brick-mortar are mostly driven out of Business, how do People without Internet or credit Card shop? What about the already existing punishment on delivery fees if you happen to live in a poor area with bad credit Ratings? Amazon doesn’t Need to invest Money to serve These customers, too, because it’s easier to take Money from the broad majority.

Local shops have provided delivery services for as long as local shops have been a thing.

What? Where do you live? And for free?

It’s like the “baggers”: Paying People to bag stuff + for the “free” bags costs the store Money, but customers think they have a “right” to it, so the Price is hidden on all product Prices.
(We don’t have baggers, we are able to pack our own stuff. We also don’t get bags for “free”, they cost 30 or 50 Cents, so we bring our own Cloth bags.)

So if back in the 1950s the Boy from the store brought your groceries “for free” the cost was simply hidden from you, it still existed.

If a local shop were to use free delivery as a loss-leader to gain business, would that be exploiting people’s laziness and bad for society and a harbinger of terrible traffic? Or is it only bad when Amazon does it?

I haven’t heard of any store proposing that. Because all reports I read say that normal stores operate on a razor-tin margin anyway.

I disagree that it’s a frivolous waste of resources. My time is a valuable resource, and I hire people to do things that save me time regularly, and many of those services for sure increase traffic.

There’s a difference if Person A says “I’m a jerk, I don’t care about the Impact my style of living/ my decisions have on anybody else” - at least that’s honest
or if they say “It’s free/ convenient, why shouldn’t I do it?” but refuses to listen to how it Impacts others.

Hiring someone to do my shopping (which takes my car off the road) seems like the least objectionable of jobs one might hire out, from a traffic perspective.

So basically you don’t care about the Impact as Long as it suits you?

Obviously, our style of living always has an Impact. But it’s possible to think 5 minutes on how the world works, or spend 1 hour reading on the costs behind the cheap T-Shirt for 5 $, and consider “Do I Need this right now, or can I do without? Is there a more ethical/ enviromental better alternative? Can I buy local?” and try to minimize Impact in some cases.

[Inner_Stickler]

@constanze

It seems to be a question of scale - sending millions of parcels, it’s worth getting a specialized machine that selects Optimum size from a range of cardboard parcels.

Sending only a hundred parcels per week, might be cheaper to get a Standard packing machine, with only 3 cardboard box sizes, and fill the rest with air-filled plastic bags adjusted to size.

My understanding is that places like Amazon optimize their packaging for better stacking on pallets and trucks. They have algorithms that play insane games of 3D tetris to maximize the amount of goods they can ship.

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

what is With the weird Capitalization in This thread. It make It very Hard to Read.

[constanze]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

what is With the weird Capitalization in This thread. It make It very Hard to Read.

I’m using Internet Explorer, which hates me. (Or autocorrects to German spelling?) I don’t know how to turn it off, sorry.

[Icarus]

Two other factors I would like to introduce.

Brown boxes - In comparing the impact and efficiency of any order delivery (same-day or other) against personally driving to the store and buying, the most direct impact is that the delivered item arrives in a brown box that needs to be disposed of. I consider this to have a negative impact on the environment, by the resource usage of manufacturing the boxes, and the increase in landfills. (Yes, recycling exists, but not everywhere.) So, it’s not exactly a wash comparing same-day delivery with going to the store yourself.

Pricing - Others have called out the possibility that the cost of same-day delivery is being artificially held low, and operates at a loss, so that at some future point where all competition is eliminated then the prices will rise to their natural level. I say, possible. It is reported that Uber is somewhat using this model for their current pricing. However, I think there is another factor involved. Much local delivery from a variety of shipping companies is now being handled by third-party delivery drivers. Much like Uber, these are “independent contractors” trying to make a buck. I’m concerned that the pricing on same-day delivery will be held low on the backs of the third-party delivery drivers. They will be pushed to accept less and less pay for their services.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@constanze

if online stores, and yes, especially Amazon, are offering either free-delivery, or same-day delivery without extra fee, especially/ only in urban places - not applying to 1 - then there can be only two ways to achieve this:
A. The store is eating the cost at first, in order to drive brick-mortar competition out of Business. Once they have most of the market cornered*, they can raise Prices to the real cost.
B. Instead of making the cost transparent, and letting only those who Need the Service pay for it, they raise all product Prices by 0.30 / all delivery fees by 2, to cover the 6$ extra fee it used to be - making everybody pay for a few.

There’s no reason that a businesses costs need to map directly on to the prices their customers pay. Amazon gets to set their prices however they want, and if people don’t want to pay extra, then they can shop somewhere else. If, as you suggest, Amazon is increasing everyone’s prices to pay for faster delivery for a few, that should make other stores more competitive, right?

And it’s not like loss-leaders are unique to Amazon. Grocery stores that have weekly sales flyers or a cheap gallon of milk are charging more on everything else to make a profit.

@constanze

Again, to repeat: It’s not about same-day/ express itself. It’s about suddenly offering it without additional fee - though the extra cost is still there.

All of your points here seem to be predicated on the idea that every service a company offers that costs something has to be passed on directly to the customer. I think that that idea is simply wrong, and is generally not true in any industry. I don’t see why it should apply to delivery costs in particular.

Even the Post Office, which is entirely focused on delivery of things, doesn’t charge this way. Letters cost the same, whether they’re going next door or across the country. They cost the same whether they’re going to a house that’s on a busy route or way out in the boonies that takes a delivery vehicle out of its way.

Prices do not have to perfectly mirror costs.

What? Where do you live? And for free?

I live in Santa Barbara, and have lived other places in California. Everywhere I’ve ever lived there have been a variety of different stores that offered delivery, generally either with a fee or a minimum order size to make delivery free.

It’s like the “baggers”: Paying People to bag stuff + for the “free” bags costs the store Money, but customers think they have a “right” to it, so the Price is hidden on all product Prices.

Right, so this is nothing new.

Do you think that when we go to stores, we should pay a fee that’s directly proportional to the amount of time it takes to check out, so the cost of the bagger’s salary isn’t hidden in the cost of what we buy?

If we go at night, should we pay an extra fee for the artificial lighting?

If we go at winter, should we pay an extra fee for heating?

Those are all things that store could charge directly to avoid hiding costs. But there are good reasons they don’t.

So if back in the 1950s the Boy from the store brought your groceries “for free” the cost was simply hidden from you, it still existed.

Exactly. What are we disagreeing about? We both agree that free delivery isn’t a new thing.

Was it a bad thing in the 1950s when stores did that? Or is it only bad now that Amazon is doing it?

There’s a difference if Person A says “I’m a jerk, I don’t care about the Impact my style of living/ my decisions have on anybody else” - at least that’s honest
or if they say “It’s free/ convenient, why shouldn’t I do it?” but refuses to listen to how it Impacts others.

So basically you don’t care about the Impact as Long as it suits you?

What?

I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Are you saying that I’m a jerk if I hire a housecleaner or a gardener because that puts another car on the road? Or am I only a jerk if I hire someone to do my shopping?

Look, originally, you said that delivery services would lead to traffic problems. And I said, no they don’t, because they replace trips that people would make. The point of the stuff you quoted here is that lots of economic activity results in more traffic, but delivery services don’t. Not sure how you twisted that into me not caring about the impact of my decisions.

Obviously, our style of living always has an Impact. But it’s possible to think 5 minutes on how the world works, or spend 1 hour reading on the costs behind the cheap T-Shirt for 5 $, and consider “Do I Need this right now, or can I do without? Is there a more ethical/ enviromental better alternative? Can I buy local?” and try to minimize Impact in some cases.

Disagreeing with you on the impact of my decisions doesn’t make me thoughtless.

Although you keep bringing issues like local businesses into it, I have never disputed that Amazon’s same day delivery won’t affect them, possibly with bad societal effects. I have simply disputed the claim that it will result in more traffic. I don’t think it will, and I’ve outlined a number of reasons why I think it will actually cause a reduction in traffic on net. Which is a good thing. Maybe not enough of a good thing to outweigh other bad things. That’s an interesting discussion to have. But by any reasonable understanding of reality, “impact on traffic” gets to be a point in favor of Amazon, not against it.

[quote=“Icarus, post:57, topic:806966”]

Brown boxes - In comparing the impact and efficiency of any order delivery (same-day or other) against personally driving to the store and buying, the most direct impact is that the delivered item arrives in a brown box that needs to be disposed of. I consider this to have a negative impact on the environment, by the resource usage of manufacturing the boxes, and the increase in landfills. (Yes, recycling exists, but not everywhere.) So, it’s not exactly a wash comparing same-day delivery with going to the store yourself.

[quote]
This assumes that same-day delivery is replacing trips to the store one for one. I don’t believe that that is the case, and that the biggest difference between same-day delivery and going to the store is that same-day delivery results in a net reduction of vehicles on the road and miles travelled due to logistics improvements. It wouldn’t take a huge reductions in vehicle travel to matter a lot more than extra box production/disposal.

[Dinsdale]

@constanze

…
Amazon isn’t doing this because it’s the best Option for the community or the Environment or the customers. They are using the laziness of customers to

• induce them to buy spontaneous, without thinking “Do I Need this? Right now? Would another item be cheaper/ better quality? Is this cheap crap that lasts only 2 weeks? Can I afford it right now or should I wait two weeks?”
  …

That’s kinda interesting, and something I didn’t really think of. Is same day shipping (and Prime 2-day) akin to endcaps and checkout displays aimed at encouraging impulse buys? Likely so.

I’m sure everyone around here considers themselves to be rational consumers who would have purchased something whether it came today or next week - but the increase of ease likely increases consumption. Yeah - free world and such, but I generally don’t consider increasing the consumption of consumer goods to be an unvarnished “good thing.”

[treis]

@Icarus

Two other factors I would like to introduce.

Brown boxes - In comparing the impact and efficiency of any order delivery (same-day or other) against personally driving to the store and buying, the most direct impact is that the delivered item arrives in a brown box that needs to be disposed of. I consider this to have a negative impact on the environment, by the resource usage of manufacturing the boxes, and the increase in landfills. (Yes, recycling exists, but not everywhere.) So, it’s not exactly a wash comparing same-day delivery with going to the store yourself.

It could also do away with a lot of plastic that is solely there to make products look good on the shelf (and to make them more difficult to steal). Think about the packaging for an SD card. Of course, that’s an extreme example, but lot’s of things come in boxes/plastic that can easily be loose packed into a single box.