Efficient ecommerce fulfillment

Suggested by Andy Downard about 3 years ago

While Amazon has created a logistical machine for its 40% market share in online purchases, the remaining 60% is a landscape of inefficiency. Currently, individual items often crisscross the nation in solo voyages, in their own boxes. This model incurs both $ and environmental costs that are unsustainable. Instead of a single truck delivering multiple orders, customers frequently find five different trucks pulling up over the course of a week, each with just one box. This redundancy inflates costs, clogs roads, and results in high greenhouse gas emissions.

The carbon footprint of last-mile deliveries is on track to scale with ecommerce's market share of retail (currently 15% and growing at about 10% a year). While the eventual shift to electric fleets offers hope, it's going to take many years. We need immediate solutions that can either maintain current levels of tailpipe emissions or, better, reduce them.