The impact of online shopping on the environment and how to mitigate it

The appeal of online shopping is easily understandable. In this article, we outline six things you can start implementing in your online shopping routines to reduce your environmental impact.

The appeal of online shopping is easily understandable. The convenience of ordering an item from anywhere at any time, with no need to leave your house or office, is a blessing for many people.

This is clear in the upward trajectory of online shopping across the globe. In the United States, for example, online shopping rakes in $517 billion, with one company Amazon accounting for 40% of that amount. Industry experts believe that Americans will spend nearly a trillion dollars ($930 billion) on online shopping by the end of 2021.

But this convenience comes at a cost: the environment.

A recent MIT study estimated that e-commerce has a 36% lower rate of carbon emissions compared to shopping in real life. However, even this lower rate is a serious cause for concern among environmentalists.

As consumers, it’s easy to get daunted by the magnitude of the environmental impact of online shopping and be satisfied with a slightly lower rate of carbon emissions.

But there’s a lot more you can do to help the environment.

In this article, we outline six things you can start implementing in your online shopping routines to reduce your environmental impact.

Don’t Take Multiple Delivery Attempts for Granted

Always try to be there when the delivery is scheduled to arrive to avoid further attempts later on.

Most delivery service providers like USPS and UPS offer text messaging alerts for this reason.

While decarbonizing the shipping industry is undoubtedly a worthy cause, no one can make that happen overnight. Accepting your packages when they arrive and avoiding multiple delivery attempts is a good start.



Combine Your Orders

Avoiding impulsive buying is key if you want to reduce the carbon footprint associated with your online purchases even further.

Map out a shopping plan to determine what you need to buy and when it’ll be needed. If possible, keep a running list of items that are low-priority so they can be bought in bulk.

If you’re shopping for more than one item, consider buying them together in a single order instead of placing separate orders since this results in fewer deliveries and shorter shipping routes.

Search for Certified Green Brands

A huge part of a product’s carbon footprint comes from how it was made and transported to the store where you bought it, so be wary of opaque supply chains that obscure this information.

You can’t do much about how products are manufactured but there is at least one thing you can do: buy from companies that prioritize green/sustainable products.

This means that the company is willing to be accountable for its products throughout its entire lifecycle, which includes manufacturing practices, quality control procedures, and how it impacts the environment in each stage of production.

There are dozens of independent organizations that certify green brands. Search for your target vendor’s certifications, paying special attention to reputable labels such as B-Certification or the Cruelty Free International Leaping Bunny.

Be Mindful of Packaging

If possible, try to go for products with sustainable packaging over products with single-use plastic packaging. Avoid products with excessive packaging. The more packaging there is, the bigger its carbon footprint.

Sustainable packaging not only reduces the carbon footprint of your purchase but also produces less waste overall.

Single-use plastics are an especially big no-no, as they are a huge contributor to the litter that pollutes our oceans and endangers marine life.

Check out online resources like the Sustainable Package Coalition for good leads on which brands are stepping up to reduce the environmental impact of their products’ packaging.



Cut Down on Returns

One of the biggest selling points of online shopping is its lax return policies. If you’re shopping for clothes or shoes, for example, you can test them out at home and then return whatever doesn’t fit.

Without a doubt, returns are convenient but they also come with serious environmental consequences that you should be aware of if you want to reduce your carbon footprint during online shopping.

There’s no point in returning items when it means more packaging materials will need to be used for the delivery.

Instead, try to avoid returns when possible and only return items that are defective in some way or no longer needed/wanted by your household.

Alternatives you can try for returning are: giving them away as gifts, selling them, or consigning them to platforms like Poshmark or ThredUP.

Don’t Forget Recycling

Last but not least, consider recycling either your old products or their packaging materials.

While you can’t do much about the carbon footprint of a product once it’s been manufactured and distributed to retailers across the country, there is one thing that you can do: recycle any leftover items instead of throwing them away.

Since recycling is a systematic process, you must check with your local municipality to find out the best way to do this in your location.

The world of online shopping has never been more tempting than it is today with the convenience and ease that comes along with it. While online shopping’s carbon emissions are lower than in-store shopping, they still add up and contribute to the larger carbon footprint. Using the six tips above will help you be mindful of how online shopping affects the environment and take steps to reduce its impact.

About the Author:

Bash Sarmiento is a writer and an educator from Manila. He writes laconic pieces in the education, lifestyle, and health realms. His academic background and extensive experience in teaching, textbook evaluation, business management, and traveling are translated into his works.

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Journey of Flintstop – an E-commerce website selling ‘Something for Everyone’

Flintstop is an e-commerce venture that provides quirky, innovative and unique products. A one stop shop for all the 21st-century products and has something for everyone.

The motto of Flintstop is “You’ve got a problem? We have a solution!” It caters in problem-solving products that can make life struggle free.

No maid at home? – Use our Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Entangled earphones? – Try our Zipper Earphones

Difficulty in getting yourself out of bed? – We have the Running Alarm Clock.

It is an e-commerce venture that provides quirky, innovative and unique products. A one stop shop for all the 21st-century products and has something for everyone; from kids to teens from working women to old men. They have it all.

Follow your dreams

Tejas Jhaveri, the founder has always been fascinated with technology and toys. In his younger days, he would brainstorm on the functionality of television sets and radios by dismantling them. Till date, he finds his candy land in every electronic store he visits.

‘Pursue what you love’ his parents told him. That’s when he resigned his job and booked his tickets for Hong Kong to attend an exhibition which was a complete eye opener for him. The products sold by the exhibitors enchanted him and he was prepared to cling on to that place forever. That’s when he was confident of what he wanted to do in life.

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Why the quirky range?

The reason Tejas got enticed to the quirky space is that on searching the web for quirky products, he did not find exactly what he was looking for. Hence the idea of innovating products got into him.

Demand for such products in India was not being met with any supply. Why not bridge the gap with an e-commerce?

What encouraged and motivated them, was receiving the first order on launching the website. It made them realise that there is a need for their quirk!

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From 2 to 12

Flintstop comprised of two people back then; Tejas and one office boy. All tasks were handled by the two of them – from listing online, to packaging, marketing and even deliveries. Today, Team Flintstop comprises of 12 full-timers and 3 part time employees who are extremely hard working and passionate. When you do something you love, you always succeed in it. All you need is the right motivation.

Wide Spread

Flintstop was started off in October 2014 with only 8 products, and today it has 280 products in multiple categories like; Home & Kitchen, Electronics, Personal & Healthcare, Stationery, Augmented Reality, 3D Printing, etc. It does online sales through their own website and also sells on 34 different marketplaces. Offline, they are available at mega retail stores and various exhibitions. A usual day at Flintstop is flourished with 100 – 150 orders a day and they have sales between 8-10 lakhs/month, which is growing rapidly.

Corporate Gifting is a significant category at Flintstop. It has succeeded in fulfilling multiple corporate orders for conglomerates like Etihad Airways, Roshan Publications, Godrej, Sun Pharma, Siemens, Aditya Birla Group and many more.

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Eventual Goal

It does not just end at selling products.

Their vision is to be an inventor, look out for problems and come up with products that can solve those problems.
Flintstop is working on building an Innovation Centre for people who have the product ideas but lack the skills to build those products. Here, they can turn their dreams into reality. Flintstop will also help them through mass manufacturing as well as Crowd funding.

Their goal is to be known in history as life changing inventors.

Visit the website: https://www.flintstop.com/

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This startup helps the online shoppers with latest deals and discounts

Online shopping has become one of the fastest and convenient ways to save time on your shopping activity. A lot of offline stores have started off with their online version as well to entertain people to do more of online shopping. CouponRani is a platform where the online shoppers are made aware of the latest deals and discounts from these online stores. Most of the online companies and stores come up with sales and deals as part of their way to clear off the stock and even to promote any of their new launches. Most of them being a startup do not spend much amount on promotion and some do not do any kind of promotion. CouponRani is a website which collects and aggregates all the coupons, deals and offers from various online stores, so that users come aware of the sale.

Ravi Trivedi founder CouponRani

Ravi Trivedi, who is the founder of Srijan Capital, which focuses on building startups and who is also an angel investor, founded CouponRani in July 2012. It was started off with just two people – Mr. Ravi Trivedi, the managing director and Mr. Sai Kumar Sarkar, who is the General Manager of CouponRani. Now, they are a team of 15 members who strive hard to make each of their users save more through online shopping. Ravi remembers that there was a huge demand for online shopping when he decided to start CouponRani and now it is one of the top most coupon sites in India that helps all crazy online shoppers to get extra savings on every purchase they make.



CouponRani is not just a coupon site for all the exclusive coupons and deals from stores but, it is also a platform which offers a differentiated set of other products such as a)Colors – their blog where you get to read articles on fashion, health, beauty, lifestyle, travel, and entertainment, b) India Discounts Chrome Extension – they have a chrome extension that makes coupons available to the user without them leaving the shopping site, c)Coupon API – they also have an API for their B2B partners, who give coupons to their site for product enhancement and revenue increasing.

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Sai, the General Manager of CouponRani says that CouponRani kick started from a scratch and this helped them to grow more in every aspect, which has led to what they are today. He shares all the credit to his hardworking members, whom he believed supported him in thick and thin, to grow substantially. Now, they are working tremendously on growing their product and technology team and expanding their Digital marketing team as well for better reach out.

“Working for own startup is indeed a challenge, but it gives me the freedom to change things, that needs immediate action. My responsibilities are 10 times more but, I am able to incorporate things in the right way with a hardworking team,” adds Ravi.