Amazon says it wants half its shippments to be carbon neutral by 2030. This is a huge challenge to tackle considering that everyday, in the US alone, E-Commerce packages travel the same distance from the moon and back, 133,000 times, according to Etsy CEO Josh Silverman.
However, there is strong evidence that suggests one very effective way to reduce the carbon emissions on e-commerce is by influencing consumer behavior to request later shipping dates. According to the research of Dr.Wendy Tate and Dr.Lisa M. Ellram, shipping by tomorrow with Amazon will cost you 50lbs of carbon dioxide, whereas shipping in 4 days will only cost you 8lbs of carbon dioxide. This extrordinary reduction in emissions due to the delayed shipping behavior is also supported in the research of Dr. Josué C. Velázquez Martínez; a sustainable logistics professor at MIT. His research shows that if you are willing to wait a week, you are killing 20 trees instead of 100 compared to express shipping.
This is why we started Otter Cart. We aim to reduce Amazons emissions from shippments by showing users a personalized calculation on the trees they can save by extending the shipping time on their Amazon order. With about 100 million active Amazon prime members around the world, there is huge potential for Otter Cart to really help save the planet.
Before you begin, ensure you have a version of git installed on your local machine by entering git --version in your command line (PC) or terminal (Mac). If there is no version that shows, install git before proceeding. You can find instructions here
You must also have a recent version of the node package manager (npm) installed on your machine. You can find instructions to download npm here
In order to test the extension please download Google Chrome and update to the latest version.
- Load git and navigate into your preferred directory using the command
cd <directory name> - Copy the https address of the repository by clicking on the clone or download on the repository page on GitHub
- In git use the command below to save a copy of the repository
git clone <insert https address here>
- Specify which remote repository will be used for network commands by using the command
git remote add origin <insert https address here>
- Implement a remote tracking branch to create a direct link between your local branch and the remote branch by using the command
git branch --set-to <remote name>/<branch name> master
- Install node modules in root directory
npm install
Refer to the links below to see the variety of API's Otter Cart uses to provide the unique service it does.
- API to check for users location - Geolocation
- API to convert addresses into latitude and longtitude - Geocoding service
- Amazon Customer Profile LWA - Customer Profile
These are the following policies which are practiced by the Otter Cart developer team to ensure the security of the API keys used in the application.
... Coming soon ...
Otter Cart is currently tested manually using the Chrome Extentions Management Page to load new versions onto the browser.
- Begin by opening a tab in Google Chrome and entering the line below into the search line
chrome://extensions - Click the load unpacked button near the top left corner of the page
- Select the
ottercart/builddirectory from your file search - Enable the extension in your browser by selecting the toggle in the bottom right corner of the extension card on the page You can also use npm scripts to play around with the project. These are outlined in the section below.
In the project directory, you can run:
Runs the app in the development mode.
Open http://localhost:3000 to view it in the browser.
The page will reload if you make edits.
You will also see any lint errors in the console.
Launches the test runner in the interactive watch mode.
See the section about running tests for more information.
Builds the app for production to the build folder.
It correctly bundles React in production mode and optimizes the build for the best performance.
The build is minified and the filenames include the hashes.
Your app is ready to be deployed!
See the section about deployment for more information.