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Comment by frossie | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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)

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.

is readily available at a store 1/2 mile from your house.

How did that item get to the store?

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.

When I had Prime I still selected standard shipping all the time for things I just didn't need right away. I just didn't like the thought of all the fuel used to put some toothpaste on a plane instead of a truck.

> 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

They were probably at different warehouse/shipping facilities and Amazon figured it was better to just fire them off than try to unite them in one place. I find when I order obscure stuff - uncommon books, a Go board, whatever - it's more likely to show up by itself than if I'm ordering mostly bestsellers and popular books.

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