Excessive packaging agh!

Thats amazon for you 🤷‍♀️

I've found the same from Amazon. Mountains of packing for small items. I know they are trying to protect your order but honestly sometimes it's too much.

Perhaps we should tell 'em. It's so wasteful.

Small items would be easily lost/overlooked if in small packaging.
It's more cost effective to have a few different sizes of packaging rather than many different sizes, makes picking and packing faster, and more efficient.

Perhaps the answer is to buy a single bar of soap from a shop?

I ordered a new waveguide cover for the microwave online. (It came in a simple padded envelope though).

I would have preferred to buy it locally, but no chance, had to resort to the internet.

But a bar of soap. I would just get it locally, even if it cost a bit more.

But each to her own.

I ordered a new cable needle last week from Amazon as I couldn’t get the right size locally. The size of the packaged item was about four inches by one and a half. It came in a cardboard packet that my iPad would have fitted in! A small padded envelope would have served just as well.

I suppose it depends on the soap, Calendargirl. Sometimes you want/need something that you can't buy locally.
And of course Amazon is usually next day delivery so you can basically shop when you are doing something else (eg. at work).

I know you know this.
But I also know that sometimes it's easier to buy online than take time out to go shopping.
I'd rather pay more to buy online (on the whole) than have to drive, park, walk and shop for one item.

Packaging matters to consumers. I was seeking a better brand of kibbled dog food and read the customer reviews of one product. Many if not most customers praised the box as being convenient for dispensing the kibble. I bought that kibbled dog food and will buy it again mainly because of quality and partly because of the convenient packaging.

Also, when buying milk I stipulate litre bottles as those are a comfortable weight and cheaper than pint bottles.

I would but tinned sardines more often if the tins were easier to open.

Sallywally1

I ordered a small bar of lavender soap which I love from amazon. It came in an enormous cardboard container, which would have fitted at least 12 bars of soap! Just, why?

I would never order one small consumable item like soap. I'd get a pack of them, or order several different things to be sent out together. Even then you get a box with lots of packing, but if you saw the conveyor belt system in an Amazon warehouse you would realise there isn't time to measure and pack each item carefully. No-one was looking at your bar of soap and wondering how best to pack it. It was thrown into a box and sent on it way.

At least the cardboard can be recycled.

Why Amazon? There are so many other websites making hand made organic soaps that smell wonderful and last ages. They are beautifully packaged and would fit through your letterbox.

Oh wait- people use Amazon because they're cheap? Not to the planet they aren't.

I find a fragrance brand called So.....? and The Cat Gallery in York, Waterstones, WH Smith, Sainsburys and Coopers of Stortford are brilliant, they only use the amount of boxes/packaging that they really have to use but those are personal orders.

As I own a shop I have to use others for ordering stock and find Amazon etc. to be ridiculous! Something small they stuff into huge boxes with giant amounts of bubble wrap that could easily have gone into a medium or large padded envelope!

keepingquiet you don't have to be a fan of Amazon (I'm not!) to use it.

Oh wait -people use Amazon because they're cheap?
No, lots of things are quite a lot more there than elsewhere.

I used Amazon 4 weeks ago for a cake decorating item that would take 55 mins to drive to a shop that had it (only open certain days/times) and 7-10 days if posted from the manufacturer's online shop. I could get next day delivery from Amazon but it was £12.49 instead of £8.99 in the shop.
I thought it was worth the extra to be able to make use of 2 hours and not drive at awkward times for me...

My family had two shops both mum and dad ran retail businesses so I'm sympathetic to independent shops and do use them whenever possible.

To get some things in the old days would have actually been easier. There is no decent art materials shop near me now, for example.

I don't think this thread was really about retail but about packaging.... and that can certainly be all-or-nothing!

I usually do buy the everyday sort of soap from local shops, but it is difficult (and expensive) to get lavender locally. I wanted it to take on holiday, which is soon!

Have a lovely break!

It’s because the people who work in their warehouses who aren’t robots, work to targets. They aren’t going to look around for a pack of smaller envelopes when they’ve ran out, they will just use a different size until the smaller ones are replenished.

Enjoy your holiday ❤️

NotSpaghetti

keepingquiet you don't have to be a fan of Amazon (I'm not!) to use it.

Oh wait -people use Amazon because they're cheap?
No, lots of things are quite a lot more there than elsewhere.

I used Amazon 4 weeks ago for a cake decorating item that would take 55 mins to drive to a shop that had it (only open certain days/times) and 7-10 days if posted from the manufacturer's online shop. I could get next day delivery from Amazon but it was £12.49 instead of £8.99 in the shop.
I thought it was worth the extra to be able to make use of 2 hours and not drive at awkward times for me...

I also buy cake decorating stuff from Amazon. We can’t buy this anywhere near us, have tried. So when making birthday or Xmas cakes I have to send off for it.
And it can be expensive but we have no choice. Supermarkets are very limited with regard to this, probs they expect us to buy their own ready made cakes.

Yip annoys me too. Amaazon is one of the biggest culprits for this!

keepingquiet

Why Amazon? There are so many other websites making hand made organic soaps that smell wonderful and last ages. They are beautifully packaged and would fit through your letterbox.

Oh wait- people use Amazon because they're cheap? Not to the planet they aren't.

I use Amazon all the time. I get free, usually next-day, delivery with my Prime membership and can often order things on there which I can't get elsewhere - or if I can, they are more expensive by the time you've factored in delivery. Like it or not, cost is probably the most important factor for many people.

I work for a small business and do my best to use minimal packaging. But sometimes the smaller box is just a tiny bit too small so I have to use a bigger box and use more padding. We use recyclable packaging where possible and we reuse packing peanuts from our deliveries- I’m diligent in scavenging every piece!

Other suppliers are available just saying.

I used Amazon for the first time in 9 years recently. The item I ordered couldn't be found elsewhere and I needed it delivered to a different address.

My fault but I didn't check the delivery address and it was sent to the former address of the people I sent it for. That's how I know it was nine years ago.

Other suppliers are available...

henetha

Perhaps we should tell 'em. It's so wasteful.

You can try - the post office and various transport firms have tried to get us all to realise that transporting large boxes containing small items is basically a matter of transporting air.

Doing so, increases the cost of deliveries and the time, as obviously you cannot get as many large boxes in a van, as you can smaller boxes.

But no-one seems to listen or appreciate the point.

I have an asthma inhaler that is packaged in a foil bag and then a cardboard box, both being far bigger than the inhaler. I use an online pharmacy who then put it in a big box far too big to go through the letter box. Annoying.