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What will Amazon gain from its charitable shipping efforts?

January 3, 2017Written by RetailWire Staff

Source: Amazon/Give Back Box

Amazon has been instrumental in getting e-commerce customers to expect free shipping. Now the company is setting up customers to ship packages on its dime — for the sake of charity. Through the Give Back Box program, Amazon customers can use their empty shipping boxes to donate to Goodwill, according to BGR. To do so, customers simply pack anything they want to donate into their old Amazon shipping boxes. They then visit the Amazon Give Back Box website, print out the appropriate shipping label and ship the box via UPS or the U.S. Postal Service to Goodwill at no cost. Donations go to the Goodwill outlet nearest to the customer. While there is a seasonal feel to the initiative, Amazon’s Give Back Box webpage does not indicate that the promotion ends with the holiday season or at any date thereafter. Amazon is not the first big-name retailer to facilitate Goodwill donations through Give Back Box, according to the program’s website. Give Back Box, which was founded in 2012 and began its partnership with Goodwill Industries International in 2015, has relationships with companies and brands such as Newegg.com, Overstock.com and Levi’s. By reducing waste and facilitating donations to charity, Give Back Box addresses two issues that are prominent on today’s consumer radar — environmental consciousness and social responsibility. As e-commerce has grown ubiquitous, companies have been taking creative steps to address the problem of increased shipping waste. Zappos, for instance, made shipping boxes marked with templates to show customers how to turn them into functional items, like smartphone holders. However such one-off solutions seem limited in their capacity to reduce waste or encourage re-use. According to Goodwill Industries International, local participating Goodwill organizations cover the shipping costs of the donations. That's good news for Amazon, who are notorious for losing money on shipping. The retailer had a net loss of $1.4 billion on shipping in the first quarter of 2016 according to Supply Chain Digest — a loss representing 6.8 percent of merchandise revenue.

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