Oh the unfathomable Amazon.

[LCHIEN]

Two days ago I ordered separate One-click orders white spoons (Qty 2) for $7 and yellow spoon (Qty 1) for $11.55. The spoons turn out identical except for color with the makers name embossed in the molding, 8.5 inches long.
Why the yellow costs so much more than the white is beyond me. But all I can say is my wife was adamant she wanted a yellow one regardless of the ridiculous cost difference.

Next they turn up in two packages today on one truck, one package having one white spoon and one having one white spoon and one yellow spoon.
When I look at the shipping/tracking they split the order of 2 white spoons into 2 shipment and combined one white spoon with the yellow spoon to ship in a second shipment.

I cannot for the life of me fathom the logic that went into that series of computer-driven decisions.

1. why didn't they just ship the 2 white ones together (one order) and one white one another order, I could understand that even though not the most efficient
2. Why didn't they use their normal logic and combine both orders into one shipment? Obviously they came from the same warehouse (or maybe not)
3. Why didn't they combine any of those with the two other packages that came on the same truck (separate orders, all) at the same time.

The only logical thing I can think of is that they had stock of one white spoon each in separate facilities, one of which happened to be in the same facility as the yellow one. They did have different kids of envelopes/

[leehljp]

With a few hundred distribution centers across the USA alone, I can agree with your logical conclusion of one at one center and two at another center.

[radhak]

Amazon is all about "efficiency", even at the expense of real efficiency anybody with common sense would know immediately. And that's because what's efficient at a smaller volume is not at Amazon's size.

I know a couple of youngsters working at a local warehouse, and they say the most important rule they need to follow, is to not allow an order to "sit".
IOW, getting that one white spoon moving was more important than saving the waste of packaging or shipping separately. And since they have their own fleet of shipping logistics (planes, ground, etc), they absorb that pretty easily.
( My guess is the warehouse with the yellow spoon had only one white, and they elected to ship them together and the other white shipped from elsewhere.)

Frankly, I wouldn't mind waiting an extra day to get all my packages in one single compact box and avoid the heartache of so much packaging material wasted.