Walmart Now Lets Online Shoppers Consolidate Items to Reduce Waste

Walmart is adopting new measures designed to reduce the amount of packaging waste for online orders. One new feature is giving customers the ability to request consolidation of multiple items into fewer boxes, reducing waste as well as the number of shipments.

Additional measures include the following:

• Moving from plastic to recyclable paper mailers.
• Opting out of single-use plastic bags for online pickup order.
• Right-sizing carboard box packaging.

Walmart anticipates eliminating more than 2,000 tons of plastic from circulation in the U.S. by the end of its fiscal year through the transition to recyclable paper bag mailers, a spokesperson for the company told EcommerceBytes. “These measures are part of Walmart’s commitment to becoming a more regenerative company as it creates a more sustainable omnichannel fulfillment network,” she said.

Customers have hundreds of millions of packages shipped from Walmart each year, the retailer said in Thursday’s announcement. “Walmart is also helping reduce the amount of cardboard used to ship products to customers by transitioning to right-sized packaging technology in approximately half of its fulfillment network. This technology helps create a package custom fitted to the customer’s order. By eliminating unused space in the box, this technology reduces the need for filler by 60% while reducing waste caused by oversized boxes by as much as 26%, creating a better unboxing experience for customers.”

Walmart also noted it uses applied AI to identify when an item purchased online can be fulfilled from stores instead of fulfillment centers, reducing the number of miles driven and the number of boxes used for shipping.

Noting a 27% growth in Walmart’s eCommerce, the company also said, “By leaning on its 4,700 stores as fulfillment centers, Walmart activates its end-to-end network to speed up delivery times for customers and reduce fleet miles and emissions, in line with the retailer’s commitment to achieve zero emissions by 2040.”

Walmart US’s Senior Vice President of End-to-End Delivery Jennifer McKeehan was quoted in the announcement, “With a Walmart store located within 10 miles of 90% of the U.S. population, we can make a meaningful difference for our customers by strategically using our stores and last mile delivery network to reduce waste and emissions.”

Update 6/1/2023: Walmart executive Manish Joneja (head of US Marketplace and Walmart Fulfillment Service) said in a post on LinkedIn on Thursday, “If you’re a Walmart Marketplace seller using Walmart Fulfillment Services, nearly all your orders shipped in plastic mailers will now arrive in recyclable paper bag mailers. This is just one way we expect to remove 2,000 tons of plastic from circulation in the U.S. by the end of this fiscal year.”

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.