Amazon is working to ship orders in one correctly sized package by creating padded mailers, using algorithms to optimize packing, and working with manufacturers
'standard' and a pared-down option called ‘frustration free’ http://www.wsj.com/... Erica E. Phillips / @eephillips_wsj : Have you started noticing that your littlest ecommerce items, which used to be shipped in a box, are now arriving in a padded envelope? Here's why... https://www.wsj.com/... w/ @LauraStevensWSJ Jim Roberts / @nycjim : “It's a lot of cardboard.” Amazon tries to figure out the box problem it created. https://www.wsj.com/... Lara O'Reilly / @larakiara : Did your online order of a tiny item arrive in a big box? Amazon wants to change that https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ
Context & Ripple Effects
The box problem is one Amazon built for itself: as early as 2015, rising package volumes had it hunting alternative delivery routes and straining ties with UPS, so every oversized carton was a cost it partly paid twice — once in cardboard, once in carrier fees. This piece marks the moment the company turned that waste into an engineering project: padded mailers for small items, algorithms that optimize packing, and direct work with manufacturers.
The through-line runs straight forward from here. Within a year Amazon was asking brands with cheap, bulky items to rework their packaging and ship from their own warehouses, and by 2023 it was stripping packaging out altogether in the name of speed, cost, and climate goals. The 2017 mailer-and-algorithm push is the first step of that descent.
First-order effects
- Shoppers ordering small items start receiving padded envelopes instead of boxes, while manufacturers selling on Amazon face pressure to design products and packaging around Amazon's sizing algorithms rather than shelf display.
Second-order effects
- Corrugated-box suppliers lose volume to lighter mailer formats, and parcel carriers lose dimensional-weight revenue per shipment as average package size shrinks — squeezing the same UPS relationship Amazon was already renegotiating.
Third-order effects
- Packaging stops being the manufacturer's branding decision and becomes a logistics input specified by the platform — the endpoint being products shipped in their own packaging with no Amazon box at all, which is where the related coverage shows the program landing by 2023.
The trend: E-commerce packaging is collapsing from a default box toward no package at all, with the platform that controls fulfillment dictating the format to manufacturers.