> What you propose would reverse that and increase carbon

You forget that by adding a price tag on delivery certain purchases wont be made. Also I would certainly batch my purchases instead of going three times a day to the retail store.

If I buy 3 things separately in a day from Amazon, usually I get one box. (It's only when the things are not all at the closest fulfillment center that there's multiple shipments).

Same, I'm pretty sure if the products are all available in the same warehouse they will get shipped in the same box for efficiency purposes. I don't think such a simple system efficiency would be overlooked by Amazon logistics engineers.

Before the pandemic i saw many people make multiple trips per day to different retail stores. This isn't new behavior for these people and disincentivizing their behavior is going to be difficult.

That's not my experience with Amazon here in the UK... Two separate orders ordered on the same day are arriving at different time slots

They were probably from two different warehouses.

But it's also an example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

That would entirely depend on the distance to the store, and the assumption you'd always use a car.

> the assumption you'd always use a car.

which seems like a reasonable assumption for anyone

- living in a rural area - living only close to a city but not within - city parts with poor public transport connections

Also, the kind of product also heavily influences that. For more specialized products, people tend to be willing to drive longer distances, therefore making the carbon emissions worse. If the store doesn't carry the item but has to order it first, it also means you double the round trips. Overall, Amazon certainly has a massive environmental impact, including GHG emissions, but in terms of emissions, everyone going to the store by themselves wouldn't really be a better option I imagine.

Over in Germany, 77% of people live in cities. You don't need a car to do grocery shopping in a city in Germany, since public transport works well. In Switzerland, public transport is even better, so you might not need a car even if you don't live in a city.

I know that the US is very different - many cities are not necessarily pedestrian-friendly - but over here, the idea that it's more environmentally friendly to have stuff delivered to you is definitely false.

I live in Germany, in the city. If asked, I guess about 60% of people in my street still need a car. Why do you ask? Because public transport is slow and expensive in lots of instances. Even if you'd be able to cover 60% of your needs without a car, you'd still need a car for quite a lot of cases.

Public transport is certainly better than in some other countries, presumably better than in the US. But it still has to become a lot better the be an actual complete replacement for a car for the majority of people.

"needing a car" and "doing all your grocery shopping by car" are two different things though.

Yes, some people, especially with kids, might take the car when they need to buy lots of stuff, but when it's "oh I ran out of milk", people will probably just walk to the nearest store, or take a bike, etc.

I think the context here was that some people were ordering from Amazon multiple times per week or so and claiming that that was environmentally friendly which I find... doubtful.

> which seems like a reasonable assumption for anyone

Absolutely not. There's plenty of people who live without needing cars.

The gp itemised which sorts of people they were talking about

I disagree. They most certainly need cars, they just do it byproxy. While they certainly reduce their footprint by not having a personal car, they exist at the far end of a very carbon heavy chain that allows populations of our size to exist.

I do my shopping when I'm near the shops anyway. It's creating negligible extra emissions.