Why is it important to shop locally and avoid online shopping as much as possible?
On the one hand, it is always good to financially support local producers and suppliers, and be part of a smaller economic system rather than letting Big Market (or whatever you want to call it) make the world turn one direction or the other.
The other reasons are unfortunately illustrated by the picture here.
We got one vinyl disc, shopped on Amazon, delivered at home. The carton box that we received was actually huge, and contained another carton box (in which the disc was actually packed), which was locked in the big one by more paper wrap. Let's not forget the extra receipt.
What happened here is a packaging overload required to ensure the product's safe arrival from one country to the other. It is an extra layer of unnecessary emissions added on top of international transportation/related ones.
It is also important to keep in mind that all shopping opportunities, as exciting as they might sound, have their obvious setback.
Each year in December, for example, it often remains easier and often cheaper to buy online and ship all over the world.
However all these "buy before it's too late"/ "to be shippped within 48h"/ "buy now and you will receive it tomorrow" options create a massive stress on transportation requirements, with a lot more trucks on the way, whose carriage is far not optimized.
Fortunately the disc is good. But we'll reconsider our options next time.