Dear MEL Topic Readers,
America's addiction to absurdly fast shipping
has a hidden cost
The delivery time has been becoming shorter
and shorter these days. Thanks to the retailers’ neck-and-neck competition, the
average delivery time from a purchase now is 4.3 days from 5.2 days just two
years ago in the US. Amazon is even shorter with only 3.2 days on average. Though
faster service sounds convenient for consumers and efficient for providers,
there is a hidden cost for quick delivery. Environmental cost. The more
packages are loaded in a truck, the more deliveries can be made per trip, which
saves greenhouse gas emission per package. However, when a customer chooses or
is automatically offered a faster delivery service without an extra charge, the
package tends to come in a less-loaded truck or even by a delivery contractor’s
car. Those retailers and logistics service companies are now using the state of
art machine learning algorithms to direct where inventory is best stocked in
order to minimize the delivery lead time and cost. However, a few days is still
environmentally friendlier and economically better than just one day to deliver
a box to your doorstep.
One possible solution is to use nudging, or subtly
encourage consumers to choose greener options without losing the competitive
edge. For example, showing the shipping option as green shipping instead of the standard
shipping (3~4 days), could direct consumers to better shipping lead time for
both environment and profit.
Every option or action counts to save the
environment.
Enjoy reading the article and think twice before
you close the next online purchase order.
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