For me, it’s a 45 minute drive to Wally World. There’s a Safeway 25 minutes away but it’s a tourist town so everything is double priced. Many of my neighbors and I have started using HelloFresh and Amazon delivery for most things. In casual conversation we talk about how our miles driven has decreased drastically. For our community, delivery seems to be “greener” than each of us driving 90 minutes for groceries 1-2x/week.

The right answer is to do what many other cities across the world do, have stores close to where people live so they don't have to drive those 500 cars.

Even in Europe with public transport to the stores, I would bet delivery is many times more efficient.

The only question is whether people buy so much more due to convenience that the maybe 50x efficiency gain gets offset by 50x more items ordered. But I don't think that's the case.

Would be interesting to know the numbers. It's a bit like IKEA, their furniture requires less energy to produce and ship but does the resulting cheapness cause people to buy significantly more?

I don't think I buy significantly more stuff than I otherwise would just because it's convenient from Amazon, but perhaps I do.

Furniture is large; you can't buy significantly more sofas and closets. It may be cheap but still not throwaway cheap.

Small items easily available via Amazon are much easier to hoard.

This reminds me of when I needed to connect a screen 3 or 4m from the source. I needed to buy a hodge-podge of connectors and cables Because of local store stock-limitations, instead of 1 cable that did it all that I could buy online now.

inner city real estate is more expensive and so would the prices be ,defeating the whole point

That might be the most optimal solution, but I wouldn't take it as a given. You may have less individuals getting things delivered, but then you're giving up prime real estate and causing more decentralization of population, which brings its own inefficiencies.

You might still be imagining it in terms of how it is done in the US. You can have department stores on the first floor of dense housing, so people only need to walk to the store. The real estate is essentially what would be a bar or restaurant but serves more people and gives people what they need. You're right if it means turning a block that could be housing into parking and a walmart. It's better than a walmart being a 10 minute drive away from where you live, but it's only half way to how it can be (and often is elsewhere).

It's definitely better. Amazon's business model is inherently more sustainable than traditional brick mortar, they essentially remove a step in the value stream.

For a brick a mortar store (and this is a little oversimplified), it goes manufacturer>warehouse/distribution center>store>customer drives to store. Note too, that the last step is usually store(s) plural unless you're doing all your shopping at a place like Walmart.

For Amazon, they cut out that entire last step and replace it with a model where a multitude of people can have their needs fulfilled with efficient routes.

Depends on delivery density.

Apartment complex with loads of items delivered each day? Makes sense, though packaging is still environmental overhead. Lots of single family homes ordering individual items distributed across suburbia? Less efficient than customer driving to the store once a week to get everything they need.

You are assuming they only go to the store once a week; and that there isn't a cost to them not having what they need when they need it. The cost can be in reduced productivity/time loss, etc or it can be in over-provisioning in which you buy extras that aren't needed (and may never be used).

Lots of assumptions and unknowns.

Implement a carbon tax and watch the market reconfigure itself.

Also: let's re-legalize corner stores!

Just because a carbon tax re-organizes the market doesn't mean that the organization that it "chooses" is good.

It means the reorganization will optimize for less carbon usage though, which I happen to think is pretty good.

Electric vehicles might complicate things some (they still present some other negative externalities despite using less carbon); perhaps at that time we can look at other incentives or taxes.

Those suburbanites probably work in a high density office building.

Amazon would deliver to the trunk of their cars.

If I order an item from Amazon, Target, Mouser, and Walmart, they're probably going to arrive in four boxes by four different carriers under the Amazon system. If they all used USPS, they might all be delivered on the same day by one carrier.

And yet it’s somehow cheaper than using USPS.

USPS has failed at taking advantage of its network effect.

The USPS may be burning their network effect benefits on universal service.

Sending a few letters from Manhattan to Nome for 50 cents snuffs out the profits from a lot of Amazon packages.

When I had Amazon Prime, I would buy items more often than I do now that I have to make a trip to the store (or pay for shipping) to purchase. For me at least, it's not a one-to-one exchange of miles on the road.

Beat me to it. I can't imagine how even with the boxes(many which are recycled) it is less efficient for a single route driver to replace hundreds if not more individual trips for the same result.

my favorite anecdote for this was kozmo.com - one person in the office would order a pint of ice cream, it would come 30 minutes later, followed by a cascade of ice cream orders and delivery people showing up to the office.

induced demand, and somehow they didn't make it up in volume.

I really miss Kozmo. I remember showing the service to my dad and us testing it out by ordering one of the harry potter books shortly after it came out and a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

This should be the top comment. Every time I think having a package delivered to my door would be more costly I take a minute and do the math.

Amazon operates two fulfillment centers in my city. Target has something like 30 stores.

If I get in my car and drive 3 miles to buy some aftershave, how is that more efficient than a truck with 500 individual items, distributing them from house to house, sometimes driving no more than a few hundred feet between drops?

Maybe we should make it illegal to drive to the store for anything, and have people use delivery services because of the reduced environmental impact.

Truly land of the free!

Apparently HN doesn’t like sarcasm