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I just can’t believe there is 85 people working in this team and I still get a box that is 10 times the size it needs to be.

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This will improve with more automation and cut-to-fit boxes.

For now, every human shipper cannot have access to an unlimited number of box sizes. It's possible to route orders to shipper lanes with the optimal box size stocked, but daily demand and product selection may not allow.

I can't comment on every single 'box is 10x the size of the product', but most likely boil down to the largest dimensional box size by order weight.

For example, given standard FedEx DIM Factor, it costs the same amount to ship an 8lb order in a 15x5x5 box as a 44x5x5 box.

If the shipping lane(s) w/ the optimal size box (15x5x5) are too busy to get the order out, nothing is lost by sending through a less busy lane in a box up to 44x5x5.

My understanding is that they have an algorithm which determines the best box size to minimize breakage and initial packing of the car for fullness.

This means your box size may be to prevent breakage for another box.

I dunno. I ordered a gallon of oil for my car, and it came in a box that could easily hold 6 of these gallon containers. There was one plastic air pocket for packaging, which was basically flopping around in the box with the oil, and doing nothing. I would think that the oil container flying around the box would cause more damage to other packages than if they had packed it tightly.

Why not just put an empty box on the car?

This seems to be an internet meme, because it's repeated in every discussion on this topic but I never see any citation for it.

It also doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny - even if the initial packing of the vehicle holds everything in place, what happens once a few packages are removed?

See "Knapsack Problem":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapsack_problem

Interesting problem but I think most situations are pretty simple. I have received a bar of RAM in a box that could fit a small dog. I applaude Amazon’s initiative to have manufacturers plan the shipping in the original packaging.

Maybe there are other factors, though? For example, I often get things from Amazon that are shipped in padded envelopes. The envelope then gets stuffed into my mailbox and bent. If it were a box, the mail carrier wouldn't try to put it in my mailbox because it wouldn't fit. So perhaps the packaging type selected statistically prevents broken RAM modules, even though it's too big if its purpose is to merely contain the RAM on a truck.

yeah I ordered a book that came with a cd from another market place, and the postman thought it fine to bend my envelope with my book a cd 90 degrees so it would fit in my mail box snapping my cd in the process.

You can easily brute force the problem for realistic orders from amazon.

What probably happened is the picker in the fulfillment center just had a larger box more readily available than a smaller box, so they took that one.

The person at the fulfillment center had to do 7 other orders that minute and gets fired if they fall behind.

Could it be the pickers are just not caring about the size of the boxes? They are supposed to be completing so many orders so little time that it's easier to just grab a big box they know is big enough while trying to get one more appropriately sized would take too much time.

Smaller box isn't always the most efficient.

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