The Crazy World of Online Deliveries

by Simon 17 Replies latest jw friends

  • Anony Mous
    Anony Mous
    If you understand why, it isn’t so crazy. It costs ~$0.3 to ship a box the size of a shoebox from the Asia to the US. So you can imagine that smaller distances are just fractions of that cost.
    The human labor involved in separating local traffic and doing small deliveries rather than just aggregating them would outstrip the cost of shipping them back to a main center.
    It is mind boggling how expensive human labor is, thus automated shipping systems resulting in large scale aggregation is worth it.
    On the other hand, waiting for a box to fill to optimize last mile deliveries, takes up space and labor just as well, hence you get the cases where Amazon will ship 3 packages through 3 different couriers in the same day.
  • WokenfromJWcult
    WokenfromJWcult

    And just think of all the wasted cardboard and boxing material. I recall maybe 40 years ago there was an environmental push to eliminate paper bags at stores and replace them with plastic bags because we cut down too many trees. I can now assume that this was just a big lie.

  • road to nowhere
    road to nowhere

    Woken

    Pulp trees come from tree farms.

    plastics can be remade easily.

    Reusable bags breed bacteria

  • Anony Mous
    Anony Mous

    Agree, it takes the equivalent of 10,000 disposable plastic bags to make 1 reusable bag. That’s a ton of plastic and energy that is eventually going to end up in the same place. Same goes for those stupid paper straws, between the weight and the extra plastic and paper, it takes about 120 plastic straws to break even on a single paper one and the paper ones need special disposal for recycling.

    Greenpeace and co is largely responsible for all the coal plants still in operation and about 50% of carbon emissions today could’ve been cut by going all in on nuclear in the 80s and 90s.

  • Darkknight757
    Darkknight757

    😂🤣

    Great Teacher

    I sold some collectibles on EBay last year and as soon as I made the label, Fed-Ex said that they had delivered. One was to Canada and the other across country in Cali.

    Tried to track them and that was no use. Ended up telling the customers to just keep a look out because calling Fed Ex was a complete waste of time. They only know what they see on their computer.

    I even asked them how something can go across the country in a matter of seconds and all they could say is that it was delivered.🤔

  • Anony Mous
    Anony Mous

    @darkknight: add insurance for a value of $100 or more, you’ll practically have full streaming video from the entire trip the package took. You do it with USPS and you get a personal call from the postmaster that they found your package on the floor of the sorting center.

    Even better when you declare it as being alcohol, a firearm or ammo. You’ll have the FBI and ATF assisting in the search.

    Where I used to work we used to ship medical and slightly radioactive samples. The cost wasn’t outrageous but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had armed guards looking at your package the whole way, they call you at customs, call you when it arrives at every point. I’m getting woken up at 4am asking if we can receive them that day. I think it was only $25 fee for that, but it’s guaranteed to arrive on your schedule.

  • Darkknight757
    Darkknight757

    Anony Mous,

    Thank you for the tips. Never knew any of that.

  • Lost in the fog
    Lost in the fog

    What makes me laugh with Amazon is that if you order an obscure item you're told that it has to come from China and will take 13 weeks to arrive.

    But if you sign up to Amazon Prime membership this obscure Chinese item can be delivered within 24 hours!

    Do they have a warehouse stuffed with these once in a million requested items - or do they have a speedy way of getting it from the Far East overnight?

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