Amazon India on Wednesday announced that it has achieved an integral milestone towards minimising packaging waste across its supply chain by expanding its India-first initiative, Packaging-Free Shipping (PFS), to over 100 cities in the country. PFS is a sustainable packaging solution in which customer orders are shipped in their original packaging without any additional packaging, or significantly reduced packaging. Amazon had first launched PFS in India in June 2019 in nine cities and within a year, the company has been able to successfully expand this program to more than 100 cities.
With this expansion of PFS, more than 40% of Amazon customer orders shipped from Amazon India’s Fulfilment centers are now packaging-free or have significantly reduced packaging. With PFS, multiple customer orders are secured and transported in re-usable totes during deliveries.
The PFS algorithm leverages technology and is applied to orders based on parameters like the location of the customer, distance the order has to travel and the category of product ordered. To keep up with Amazon’s vast and rapidly expanding selection, Amazon.in uses machine learning algorithms to adjust packaging protection depending on the product and transportation conditions. Products that are shipped packaging-free include tech accessories, home and home improvement products, shoes, luggage, and more. Liquids, fragile items, and personal care products that need additional protection during transportation continue to be shipped with packaging.
“At Amazon India, we are aggressively working towards building innovative and sustainable packaging solutions which will help us minimise waste. We have been working with several brands to provide e-commerce friendly packaging to further reduce use of secondary packaging. The expansion of PFS to 100 cities within a year is a testament to our commitment towards sustainability. We continue to expand this initiative while ensuring safe and secure deliveries of customer orders,” said Prakash Kumar Dutta, Director, Customer Fulfilment & Supply Chain, Amazon India.