Is Christmas Efficient? (2013)

(marginalrevolution.com)

42 points | by arcdefoo1 day ago

7 comments

  • AlexCornila13 hours ago
    we are over saturated with economic thinking ..at this point when I hear efficiency or competitiveness a suddenly have an uncontrollable reflex of throwing up
    • niam10 hours ago
      I get the hatred of excesses wrt finance/economics, to a point. Though I can't help but see comments against efficiency in general as a shift in the needle towards policymakers who bask in nimwittitude.

      We're not over saturated with it, because in another universe: paper currency failed the vibe check because not-thinking-about-stuff was en vogue. I'm glad we live in this one.

      • 10 hours ago
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      • tempodox9 hours ago
        > nimwittitude

        Is that the intellectual level of a witling?

      • markovs_gun10 hours ago
        That legit happened a few times in history until it stuck. Paper currency was invented and abandoned many times in history so we sort of do live in the timeline where it failed the vibe check, it's just such a good idea people kept trying it afterwards.
    • tmtvl11 hours ago
      Healthy employees do better work than unhealthy ones and happiness is a key component of mental health. Hence efficiency improves when employees have better working conditions.
    • 11 hours ago
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    • eMPee58412 hours ago
      how about transitioning to a non-commercial, cooperative "resource-based" economy then? we could need some help..
    • 12 hours ago
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  • 1123581321345512 hours ago
    In terms of pollution/environment? probably not efficient
  • namaria16 hours ago
    Hey I'd forgotten about Marginal Revolution! I used to follow this blog several years ago, thanks for the reminder!
  • dudeinjapan12 hours ago
    The real question is: "Is Santa (thermodynamically) efficient?" https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~andrew5/cute/engineer_santa.txt
  • Sparkyte19 hours ago
    Good article.

    I feel like it was more efficient in the past before Amazon. Now everyone buys online, you buy from Amazon sometimes you don't realize the product you just puchased wasn't even from Amazon but a third party seller. The product sometimes fake.

    The dependency on the 4th quarter is just dumb.

    • cma16 hours ago
      Delivery is a lot more efficient than each person driving to the store.
      • graemep13 hours ago
        Is that always true? Definitely if you are buying things from one place, but what if I drive a few km into town (in a hatchback), buy multiple things from multiple shops and drive back, how does that compare to getting multiple deliveries made by much larger vehicles?

        Then there is that far greater amount of packing used for deliveries. The box you would find in the shop is packaged inside another box, often much larger. Then there is the far higher rate of returns.

        IT may be true, buts its not obvious to me that it is.

        • amelius13 hours ago
          Also the ease of buying stuff increases, so more stuff needs to be produced and transported.
          • Schiendelman10 hours ago
            It's been pointed out to me that how much stuff you buy is usually a function of your income, it may not matter how you get it.
            • amelius10 hours ago
              A weak function is also a function. Also if your income is higher you probably buy stuff that is more expensive.
            • graemep8 hours ago
              it is, but its not linear - the proportion of incomes spent falls as incomes get higher.
              • amelius8 hours ago
                Yes and also spent on more durable items.
        • sandblast11 hours ago
          I would not underestimate the amount of resources necessary to support this brick-and-mortar stores model. You need to deliver those goods to each shop, then handle the returns of unsold items... Not to mention costs of employees (and their costs) — but that may be debatable, of course (creating jobs).
          • graemep8 hours ago
            Yes, there are logistics behind shops. It is going to vary a lot with what you buy and from whom. Food is likely to be delivered from somewhere local AFAIK so its not going to simplify the logistics.

            Buying from a shop does not necessarily mean driving to the shops: at the moment (and in some places I have lived in in the past) there are quite a few things I buy from local shops I walk to. In some big cities I would take public transport to buy anything that was not heavy (and really heavy things would be delivered anyway, of course).~

            The point of want to make is that its not invariably true and in many cases it is not obvious it is true - you need to know how the supply chains work.

            • Sparkyte4 hours ago
              I just ride the bus to the mall. I also walk to the grocery store.
            • cma4 hours ago
              > Food is likely to be delivered from somewhere local AFAIK so its not going to simplify the logistics.

              Delivered restaraunt food in urban enough areas sometimes from ghost kitchens, large commercial prep kitchens but making the full meal, instead of the restaraunt, but this may have died down after the pandemic.

              But I wasn't taking about food delivery, more Amazon delivery van full of products vs something on the order of 1 million tons of vehicles driving to the store. Amazon vans can do 300-500 deliveries during Christmas, and personal cars have gotten heavier. It's vastly more efficient except where you could take the subway or something. But in large Urban places with subways the van may only have to go to a single building to drop off hundreds of packages in some cases so may still win out vs hundreds of subway trips.Couldn still win out,and especially if factoring in human time.

              Big delivery trucks to a few rural stops might not be efficient, but when you order from rurally your packages might get dropped off by something like a Camry making 10 deliveries, I've seen that from Walmart orders, or a smaller US mail truck.

          • Sparkyte4 hours ago
            Return rates of brick and mortar are about 8-10%. Where as online and approximate 30%.

            In addition to this the trash contributed to selling drop shipped Temu garbage.

            • cma3 hours ago
              There is tons of empty capacity back to the distribution center for returns
      • Sparkyte15 hours ago
        [flagged]
  • paulryanrogers21 hours ago
    Interesting question but how would you prove any of it without a lot of natural experiments?
    • Animats20 hours ago
      By adding a new gifting holiday in midsummer, for load-balancing. It's called "Amazon Prime Day".
      • praptak18 hours ago
        It might get tricky. Midsummer already has a spending stimulus. Summer vacation is when people spend their money on tourism.
        • ozim15 hours ago
          Imagine how much money Amazon could make if they invest money into convincing people that they should spend it on gifts instead of travel.

          Who cares about tourism industry if you can take their money.

          • Schiendelman10 hours ago
            Maybe gift giving is lower environmental impact!
  • jowdones18 hours ago
    [dead]