Green is the New Black
Naturally, Amazon.com, the biggest online retailer in the universe, needs to keep abreast of all things hip and trendy – so it should come as no surprise that the virtual shopping giant is aiming at the steadily increasing throng of environmental-savvy consumers.
A Site for Eco-Savvy Shoppers
To hit its new organic target, Amazon has launched a new site called Vine.com – a tree-hugger’s Eden and one-stop shop for buying exclusively green items. The inventory is quite impressive at Vine.com. The site is stocked with all sorts of items including groceries, pet supplies, home accessories, apparel, health and wellness items, baby products and more.
Just what is “green” to the Vine team? Well, according to the “Green Standard” written on their website, Vine.com believes:
“There is no single way to define what it means to be “green”. So what is it that makes our products “green”? At Vine.com, we define a “green” product as one that…is made with healthy, environmentally sound ingredients and materials – a product that, at its core, is better for you and better for the planet.
Before we qualify a product as “green”, we review the product description provided by the vendor to check that materials and ingredients are organic, natural or made mostly from sustainable materials. Products that otherwise contribute to a healthy home because they are energy efficient, water efficient, reusable, remove toxins or use renewable energy also qualify for the site.”
You can read more about how products qualify to be sold on Vine.com here.
Amazon.com May Be Seen in a New (Green) Light
What’s truly great about this move by Amazon is that it may rebut the current typical consumer’s image regarding the company as one that spends most of its time, energy and money on running warehouses and delivering goods that are cushioned in layers of bubble wrap and stuffed in cardboard boxes.
Vine’s site leader, Josh Dorfman, understands that notion and responds with:
“It’s a fair point that no matter how you’re going to engage in commerce, there’s going to be an environmental impact. We’re not promising to be the greenest company right away, and we’re owning up to the fact that it’s not the way we operate across the entire company.”
The Vine Will Also Appeal to Local Community Supporters
That being said, the now Amazon-owned company is dedicated to all-things organic – and is even aiming to oblige civic-passionate consumers, too, but offering a substantial inventory of fair-trade products as well as items that Vine vows to have been made within 100 miles of a consumer’s locale. Shoppers can actually narrow down a product search to a particular city in order to make sure they are purchasing goods made in their communities. As of now, this option is available for people located in 12 different cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Milwaukee, Boston, Philadelphia and others. What’s more, the site offers free 12 day shipping for those who buy over $49 worth of green stuff (otherwise there is a flat delivery fee of only $4.99).
Vine is actually a subset of Quidsi, a company amongst the massive number of Amazon.com owns. Quidsi is responsible for running smaller sites like Diapers.com, Wag.com, and YoYo.com. But what makes Vine.com different from Amazon’s other babies is that it will show no mark of its owner on its site. That’s right – Amazon’s brand presence will not be spotted anywhere on Vine.com’s site, and users will have to log into the green retailer with a username and password different from that which they use for Amazon.
It’s almost like Amazon is practicing a secret, random act of kindness for the entire planet – and for that, they deserve some pure kudos.
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