From the Wall Street Journal:
“Millions of Amazon orders are arriving on doorsteps across the U.S. without any extra packaging. A new television may sit in the manufacturer’s box at the door. A blender appears as if it were picked off a store shelf. The same for a box of baby wipes or trash bags.
“The change represents the next frontier in the tech giant’s overhaul of its delivery processes, one Chief Executive Andy Jassy hopes will appeal to customers who are put off by the volume of Amazon-branded boxes they receive and discard every week.
“The company in the past year revamped its logistics network, enabling faster and more efficient deliveries. Eliminating or reducing packaging has become increasingly important for the company to maintain its dominance, reduce costs and reach its goals related to its climate impact.”
One example of how it works:
“Amazon tests packages to be eligible to ship without a container, and it says that the system has improved through the use of artificial intelligence. The company performs up to 19 different tests at a facility near its Seattle headquarters that include compressing items, vibrations and drops from different angles.
“One item the company put through its system was a package of screwdrivers. The screwdrivers were originally packaged using soft plastic that made it hazardous to ship without extra protection. Amazon helped the vendor, which it declined to name, design a new, six-sided container that would require no extra packaging.
“Then the company used AI to identify other vendors with similar screwdrivers and shared the new container design with them. The company reduced the size of the package by more than half to about 125 cubic inches, making it less expensive to ship. For 100,000 of the screwdriver packages shipped across a 12-month span, the cost savings through an incentives program tied to the initiative would total about $34,000, Amazon said.”
KC’s View:
We got one of those no-packaging packages via Amazon the other day, and it was mildly startling – but after some consideration, it seemed to make a lot of sense and the product was intact.
My only suggestion is that Amazon ought to add a sticker to the package explaining why there is not outside packing. Educating the customer, at least in the short term, would make a lot of sense.
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