Our home delivery habit reshaped the world
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
To be frank at this point it feels like they are trying to extort ad money to stop negative press coverage.
The point I took from the author is that the expectation of same-day or even two hour shipping is erasing the barriers to consumption. There's a big difference between a weekly walk to shop or drive to the mall, and 24/7 instant delivery with just a click. It's no secret that the pitch on fast delivery speed is that people will consume more.
Anecdotally, many people I know who have Prime seems to have steady streams of packages arriving at their door - snacks for the kids one day, a new sweater the next, a package of toilet paper the next - with the logic that they have paid for the delivery, they might as well use it. Each in a separate trip, box etc. And if an item is incorrect or damaged, they often don't even bother to return it, they will just order something else.
With groceries, I plan out my week's meals with the Paprika app, shoot the list of ingredients over to notes, and then order only what is on that list, which is delivered to my door.
No more "hmm, this looks interesting" as I'm wasting my time walking up and down aisles specifically designed to make me spend more.
My fridge and cupboard now look almost empty, despite having the week's shopping in it because I don't have jars and boxes of HFCS-laden garbage that I bought on a whim.
As far as non-consumable goods go, I spend the time I used to waste driving to and from stores and trying to find objects hidden in a sea of shelves finding written and video reviews of big-ticket items and I do not purchase anything unless I know it has passed the muster of several trusted reviewers, has all of the features I want, have seen it from every angle, know its precise dimensions, and know it has documentation and patches/upgrades available on the manufacturer's website.
Can't really do that looking at a box on a shelf in a store.
Regarding a steady stream of deliveries, it is too easy to set up a once-a-week delivery, at least with Amazon Prime. I set mine to Saturday.
People who impulsively buy things online are the same people who would have gone to the dollar store for "shopping therapy" pre-online shopping and come home with a basket full of cheap Chinese crap.
When it comes to fresh produce, though, this is exactly how I shop. We've gotten accustomed to buying things in any season and then wonder why strawberries look beautiful but taste like a cucumber. It's not until I'm at the store that I remember what fruits and vegetables are in season.
So then I buy what's in season, seems tasty and what I think I can use for the week. If it turns out I over-bought, I find out during mid-week assessment of the fridge, and repackage certain things for the freezer, prioritizing what's best fresh.
And this becomes a fun time to experiment with cooking. I have A, B, C, which were all bought with the intent to be seperate dishes. Can they be combined in a novel way? Then you're no longer following recipes, you're having fun, making new things and get to enjoy the result.
For example, that's how I found out that dumping a handful of garlic cloves in chicken thighs slow-cooked in olive oil produces a nice sweatness. Another day I tried the same but pressure-cooked due to time constraints and while the chicken was ok, the garlic didn't produce that amazing sweetness.
It may rhyme but it remains offensive.
Can you please change that? Maybe not for that post, as it is too late, but for your future posts?
Let's say I take a weekly trip to the store in my car. I also have to park it at the store during my trip, meaning the store must use extra land for parking spaces.
Does the delivery truck drive on that same exact trip for each delivery? No, it's already on a computer-optimized delivery route and it will stop and deliver things to my neighbors.
As far as increased consumption, I wonder how in-store retail tactics compare to online shopping. Sure, I might be tempted by the lack of friction by online purchases, but when you go to the store there are temptations galore. You pass aisles with endcaps of stuff you don't need, you pass the beer and liquor section, and perhaps all the things you want are placed at the back of the store - on purpose, so you pass other items.
Isn't this why Amazon's search function is so terrible?
Just because I ordered on Monday doesn’t mean I need it Tuesday. And you’d think they’d learn that there is no front-desk on Sundays before 10AM, but no.
Ugh.
You can: https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=17928921011
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/amazon-prime-members-can-c...
I drop off my kid at Main Street for dance. I pick up my laundry and drop off my USPS in the same plaza
I continue on to Costco, and if gas (I take whichever car is lowest on gas).
Costco has everything you could typically need, but on the way back there are very many stores I can stop at.
Pick up the kid, eat lunch at Main Street.
The whole circuit, round trip is 16mi, but I've done things I would have done anyways, COSTCO adding only 8 mi, but saving me (usually) having to go do groceries. So let's say an extra 4 mi.
Also, my car is far lighter than a utility van, not driving door-to-door so my mpg are much better. Double? So my Costco run is a 2 mi. equivalent.
But at Costco (and Target next door) I can get everything in one big shot. W/ Amazon I'll get very many deliverables.
Frankly, I just don't think it's that obvious picking stuff up myself isn't better.
And it isn't that obvious that delivering stuff isn't better. Less demand for in store items could also reduce store sizes, saving on energy costs, and reduce staffing needs, reducing the staff's energy usage to travel to and from work, and so on and so forth. We can keep going and add on the waste and negative effects of huge parking lots around huge stores.
There are many incalculable effects, not to mention that you might happen to have a stretch of road with dance, laundry, USPS, Costco, and Target in close proximity. What about everyone that doesn't?
While we're at it we could make trucking companies pay for the actual amount of wear they put on the roads and the costs to build truck-supporting infrastructure. And I'd like a pony.
Congratulations! You have discovered gas taxes ;-)
Besides, we should discourage passenger vehicle use anyway, so raise the gas tax until it covers per mile delivery vehicle road wear.
a 9ton big-rig does 410x the damage
https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh...
How? I don't follow this logic.
Is that true though that X cars travelling a mile of road would do less damage than 1 truck traveling on that same road?
Every UPS truck that goes out with 100 packages means, what -- conservatively, maybe 50 separate car trips that it replaced?
And so that much less traffic, congestion, pollution, gas used, etc.
Similar to how building more or wider roads do not reduce congestions - more traffic takes its place.
And certainly some of those activities can involve driving, like going to visit friends. But many other activities will just be spending more time at home -- e.g. coming home straight from work instead of running errands, or staying home Saturday afternoon to read or play video games.
To your point: in areas where traffic congestion is already extreme, it may not make a difference because there's so much pent-up demand for car trips. But in most of the rest of the country (suburbs, rural, etc.) that doesn't suffer from congestion, I think package delivery would have to result in reducing traffic to some measurable degree.
so 5x road wear of normal car when unloaded. 81x the wear when fully loaded.
I don't think anyone considers road wear to be a major deciding factor here. Congestion and pollution are.
Public Transit bus weighs 44k fully loaded. Assuming only seated passengers, it holds 44 people so 1000lb per person. A car is 4000lbs on average. Fully loaded (with standing) holds 92 people. 478lb/person.
I just wanted to see what weight per person was. Doesnt matter as much for road wear, but as you were saying, pollution etc matters too, and weight per person matters for the other factors. Not weight per axle like road wear