<story><title>About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/air-cushions/511487/?single_page=true</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>massysett</author><text>Amazon ships a huge box, then loads it halfway with paper or air bubbles. Everything shifts around, so it protects nothing in transit. They often ship non-delicate items like clothes in cardboard boxes, where plastic bags would be less wasteful and more protective. Overall, the result of their shipping is that I spend a lot of time deflating plastic, breaking down boxes, and moving lots of garbage to my garage and, subsequently, the curb. Then a truck hauls it some more.  All for packaging that ultimately protected paper towels, or that was so loose that the box rattled anyway. It&amp;#x27;s worse than worthless--it destroys value, takes time, is inconvenient, and hurts the environment, all for no useful result at all.&lt;p&gt;And Amazon does not seem to care. It is so bad that I have shifted purchases offline to Costco in part so I don&amp;#x27;t have to deal with all this shipping waste. Costco doesn&amp;#x27;t even give me a bag.</text></item><item><author>anexprogrammer</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s sensible. What isn&amp;#x27;t is the often &lt;i&gt;vast&lt;/i&gt; oversize of Amazon packaging. Like sending one hard drive in a 2cu ft box with lots of packaging. There&amp;#x27;s now lots of scope for the item to move around so the single item inevitably ends up in a corner against the outer box.&lt;p&gt;Amazon never seem to actually bubble wrap anything any more - which has led to damage more than once. Neither the string of air pockets, as in the article, or paper is as effective as they rarely use enough to prevent movement.&lt;p&gt;Here in the UK Amazon seems to have switched solely to paper inner packaging. Environmentally I prefer this.</text></item><item><author>greglindahl</author><text>UPS wants 2 inches of space between the product and the outer box... keeps real damage from happening if the outer box is slightly punctured by something.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ups.com&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;resources&amp;#x2F;ship&amp;#x2F;packaging&amp;#x2F;guidelines&amp;#x2F;how_to2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ups.com&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;resources&amp;#x2F;ship&amp;#x2F;packaging&amp;#x2F;g...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>krapp</author><text>I had to package and tape boxes at an Amazon fulfillment center over peak season one day.&lt;p&gt;One of the &amp;quot;problems&amp;quot; I found with the process is the system tells you the size of box to use. You&amp;#x27;re not allowed to use a smaller size, even if it would work, only that size or larger. It also tends to overestimate the size of the item, so many boxes wind up with a lot more empty space than would be necessary, and more packing.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sure this bias is intentional, but I found it odd at the time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>function_seven</author><text>I recently ordered this decal[1]. It came in this box[2].&lt;p&gt;If you don’t want to visit the links below, the sticker is 4 inches square, and the box is 7” x 5” x 10”. Why a cardboard mailer wasn’t enough, I don’t know. At least the seven air pouches included with it protected it from high G forces...&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;a.co&amp;#x2F;ew4OGOB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;a.co&amp;#x2F;ew4OGOB&lt;/a&gt;
2. &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;imgur.com&amp;#x2F;qCsvJu7&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;imgur.com&amp;#x2F;qCsvJu7&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>About Those Air Cushions in Amazon Packages</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/air-cushions/511487/?single_page=true</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>massysett</author><text>Amazon ships a huge box, then loads it halfway with paper or air bubbles. Everything shifts around, so it protects nothing in transit. They often ship non-delicate items like clothes in cardboard boxes, where plastic bags would be less wasteful and more protective. Overall, the result of their shipping is that I spend a lot of time deflating plastic, breaking down boxes, and moving lots of garbage to my garage and, subsequently, the curb. Then a truck hauls it some more.  All for packaging that ultimately protected paper towels, or that was so loose that the box rattled anyway. It&amp;#x27;s worse than worthless--it destroys value, takes time, is inconvenient, and hurts the environment, all for no useful result at all.&lt;p&gt;And Amazon does not seem to care. It is so bad that I have shifted purchases offline to Costco in part so I don&amp;#x27;t have to deal with all this shipping waste. Costco doesn&amp;#x27;t even give me a bag.</text></item><item><author>anexprogrammer</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s sensible. What isn&amp;#x27;t is the often &lt;i&gt;vast&lt;/i&gt; oversize of Amazon packaging. Like sending one hard drive in a 2cu ft box with lots of packaging. There&amp;#x27;s now lots of scope for the item to move around so the single item inevitably ends up in a corner against the outer box.&lt;p&gt;Amazon never seem to actually bubble wrap anything any more - which has led to damage more than once. Neither the string of air pockets, as in the article, or paper is as effective as they rarely use enough to prevent movement.&lt;p&gt;Here in the UK Amazon seems to have switched solely to paper inner packaging. Environmentally I prefer this.</text></item><item><author>greglindahl</author><text>UPS wants 2 inches of space between the product and the outer box... keeps real damage from happening if the outer box is slightly punctured by something.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ups.com&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;resources&amp;#x2F;ship&amp;#x2F;packaging&amp;#x2F;guidelines&amp;#x2F;how_to2.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ups.com&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;resources&amp;#x2F;ship&amp;#x2F;packaging&amp;#x2F;g...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>krapp</author><text>I had to package and tape boxes at an Amazon fulfillment center over peak season one day.&lt;p&gt;One of the &amp;quot;problems&amp;quot; I found with the process is the system tells you the size of box to use. You&amp;#x27;re not allowed to use a smaller size, even if it would work, only that size or larger. It also tends to overestimate the size of the item, so many boxes wind up with a lot more empty space than would be necessary, and more packing.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sure this bias is intentional, but I found it odd at the time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>huac</author><text>Amazon owns East Dane&amp;#x2F;ShopBop, clothing sites which do always use plastic bags. I guess for mainline Amazon they don&amp;#x27;t care enough about to differentiate what they ship products in.</text></comment>