Re: Home Shopping and Energy Consumption
I've thought a lot about it, too, and here is my current theory: I figure that, with small items, particularly if you use the USPS option where you don't get a discrete delivery, it's probably more efficient to buy things and have them delivered. Things like books and CDs and such, especially if you know just what you want and aren't likely to find it the first place you look. The post office likely does have very efficient solutions for shipping standard, relatively small packages like that, and they're coming to your house anyway. Also, the farther away you live from major retailers, the more efficient it'll be to have things delivered.
However, particularly with larger and more funny-shaped items, with commonly available goods, and with things that would be delivered discretely by FedEx or UPS, it's probably more efficient to let the supply chain do most of the delivery, sending the goods to some local outlet by the most efficient means possible, rather than carving out a unique and one-time only path to deliver something to you, and cutting out the time when the driver leaves the truck idling to hand you your package and all that. I mean, if the manufacturer ships 80 gazillion electronic gadgets every day, they're likely to have worked out the best and most economic at least solution for delivering a sufficient supply of those gadgets to a big-box retailer in yoru area, making that more efficient than having your CD player or whatever shipped individually. Does that make sense? Do I ask if I'm making sense too much? I remember being really bothered by this during the dot-com boom. I mean, I could not imagine how it could ever be more efficient to order dog food and stuff like that online. It's really things like that that I meant to address. Things where you just do the last mile delivery, from a nearby store to your home, in your hopefully energy efficient car, picking up multiple items at once like you do at a grocery store.
With things like that, I think it does make more sense economically and environmentally to use a delivery model where product A is delivered en masse to outlet B, using a known and likely well-honed delivery method, leaving just the last mile delivery to end users C through Z, as opposed to the less efficient model where product A is delivered discretely to locations C through Z via unique, single-use paths. I would draw a picture of this, because I don't think I'm explaining it very clearly. Does that make sense? Do I ask that too much? Do I ask if I ask if I'm making sense too much too much?
And certainly sometimes, it makes sense on an individual basis to order something online if you want something very specific, if you'd end up driving all over town trying to track it down, or hell, even if it saves you a lot of money or trouble. I just bought a CD player online because I wanted something pretty specific, and I was able to get exactly what I needed for over 50% off through an online retailer. Idling delivery truck and all. I just decided, in that case, to go all Tragedy of the Commons on all of y'alls asses, putting my own desires ahead of the overall environmental cost and stuff. I just try not to make a habit of it is all.
Anyway, believe it or not, I actually do try to figure this shit out in my head before I buy something. I never buy staples online, but I almost always buy rare or hard to find media or anything I would have to drive very far for online. Unless it's something I would have to try on or otherwise eyeball in person. Everything else I pretty much try to do the math on discretely, and I do kind of waffle and tweak my formulas a lot, and I consider other factors as well. For example, I actually do not go to WalMart for any number of reasons unrelated to my crackpotty supply chain theories. I do drive all the way into Boulder on summer weekends to buy fresh produce at the farmer's market because the price, quality, and small business supporting to me outweighs the delivery method considerations. I have milk delivered to my door once a week for similar reasons, and because I appreciate the humane conditions the dairy provides their cows (I can go visit them grazing in their fields), they don't use hormones, and they reuse their glass bottles. Also even a little bit because I like that some skinny old hippy who signs his name 'Milkman Bill' sneaks up in the middle of the night and leaves milk in the box, like some kind of crazy elf.
Also, I actually never go to WalMart because of other considerations, including that it smells funny and I try to avoid the kind of nasty exploitative shit they specialize in. I was just saying that as an example, but all of a sudden, I felt like clearing it up. I go to Target and grocery stores and stuff, though.
Can you tell that, when I'm not sure if I'm explaining something sufficiently, I just explain it more times? Is that annoying? Do I ask too many dumb parenthetical fourth-wall kind of meta-"How'm I doing" kind of questions like that? Am I bugging you? Cause I'm not touching you. How could I be bothering you if I'm not touching you?
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