Shopping from the comfort of your own home, while sipping your favorite coffee, browsing quickly through items, comparing products and prices with just a few clicks.
Time saving? Definitely. Convenient? You bet.
In today’s world, where the motto is “time is money,” e-commerce plays an important part. It is no surprise that Amazon had such a significant impact on brick-and-mortar retail.
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Some 25 years ago, Amazon made a key move for its growth, enabling third-party sellers to list their products on the platform. This way, the e-commerce retailer could reach a much wider audience.
These sales have become the norm for the online retail giant. In the first quarter of 2024, 61 percent of Amazon sales were through third-party sellers, according to Statista.
Amazon has expanded its operations and services markedly since its launch, and it constantly upgrades them. Recently it has heavily invested in artificial intelligence (AI), stressing the need to keep up with the pace of technology.
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In the first quarter of 2025, Amazon reported net sales 9.% higher than the same period last year, and a net income of $17 billion, which is nearly 40% higher than in the first quarter of 2024.
In May this year, Amazon received 2.8 billion visits globally. The e-commerce giant employs 1.5 million people to manage its operations.
To say that managing this kind of business is hard would be an understatement.
That’s why it's no surprise that sometimes mistakes happen, and other times, it might just be that customers are uniformed about all the options they have at their disposal.
Amazon customers flag discretion issues
A recent Reddit thread revealed some issues consumers experienced when ordering on Amazon.
More specifically, one user began a discussion by sharing that the company hid the name of the item ordered in the email body but not in the subject line. They sarcastically wrote, “Thanks, Amazon.”
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Why was the customer uncomfortable with the email's subject revealing their order? It was a toy for adults.
Imagine that. Sometimes our emails are easily visible to those around us, when they flash on the phone, or if we are sharing our computers with others. We don’t want everyone to see what we are shopping for.
The post quickly resonated with many consumers, receiving around 40,000 upvotes and more than 600 comments from users sharing similar experiences.
Another user replied sharing that her “postpartum adult diapers just got slapped on my doorstep in its full glory.” Many people connected with this post, trying to cheer up the user by sharing that they all had to wear the same diapers, and there’s nothing to feel ashamed about.
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While this is true, I sympathize with the woman who doesn’t feel comfortable broadcasting to her neighbors that she needs postpartum diapers. It’s personal — why should the world know?
Wait, doesn’t every package from Amazon come in a widely recognized Amazon box?
Third-party sellers ship in their own package, but Amazon has a solution
When you order something on Amazon, if it comes from its warehouse, the item should be packed in an Amazon box. However, since the e-commerce giant has plenty of third-party sellers, their products do not come from Amazon’s warehouse.
Amazon works with many brands worldwide to optimize their packages, reducing materials use while ensuring safe delivery. Thanks to this and other efforts, the company has managed to reduce outbound packaging weight per shipment by 43% on average since 2015, which amounts to more than 3 million tons of packaging material.
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Some customers don’t know that there is an option to ask for shipping the product in an Amazon package instead of just the original one. Unless you choose this option and you are buying an item from a third-party seller, everyone will see what you’ve ordered.
This way, Amazon is thinking about minimizing waste from unnecessary packaging, while also providing options for its customers to request discreet delivery when needed.
While shipping in the Amazon package doesn’t resolve the issue of the name of the item showing up in the email's subject line, that was probably just a mistake.
Imagine the number of orders the company receives daily—about 12.87 million, or 8,937 per minute — it seems almost impossible that a mistake doesn’t happen now and then.
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