
Amazon Moving To Frustration-Free Packaging - tortilla
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200285450
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Prrometheus
This strikes me as one of those great, marginal innovations that you need a
giant corporation to implement. How many manufacturers are going to change
their packaging line for a startup?

Congratulations, Amazon. Way to use your size for good.

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gcheong
Walmart has a similar initiative to reduce packaging from its vendors. This
has a couple effects - increases shelf space and reduces waste. Size does have
its advantages.

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potatolicious
Not only that... Amazon no longer has to expend ANY packing material or effort
(material + labor savings) when shipping these items. Slap a label on it and
ship 'er out.

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michael_dorfman
I think this is brilliant on Amazon's part. The frustration factor in opening
some items (children's toys, for instance) shouldn't be underestimated.

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petercooper
Not just the frustration factor, but the recycling factor is key too -
especially in areas (such as mine) where trash is heavily limited (3 sacks for
2 weeks max) but recycling paper/cardboard is easy.

I think Amazon might have taken some influence from Sennheiser who have been
trying out the whole "eco" packaging thing lately: <http://is.gd/6dHl> : It's
worked out well - I believe the eco packaged headphones outsold the regular
packaged ones on Amazon.co.uk for quite a while, so it might have helped them
go with the idea.

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lallysingh
Where is that?

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petercooper
United Kingdom. Our council is quite progressive on the recycling front.
Despite the inconvenience at first, I'm in support of it. I think we recycle
about 60% of our household waste now. Large families and those with babies get
special allowance to have more trash, so it's reasonably fair.

The only downside, and one many are complaining about, is that they
alternative trash pickup with recycling pickup, so you have to leave some
trash sitting around for 2 weeks.. not pleasant to drag through the house on
pickup day.

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ionfish
The more stuff one composts or puts in a food bin (provided by the council in
some places, such as Richmond), the less smelly stuff one has to endure in the
bin proper.

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watmough
This is totally excellent. If nothing else, it'll make kids happier since they
will be able to open their own presents.

Lots of kids toys have thick binding, thick clear plastic etc., that is very
difficult even for adults to open, and often requires sharp scissors.

Great move, and congratulations to Amazon.

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jmatt
_it'll make kids happier since they will be able to open their own presents_

That makes me smile. Excellent point and better holidays for all.

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sdfx
A lot of these packages are designed to attract customers in stores -
something that is not required online.

I hope this one catches on.

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markessien
Amazon is one of the companies that took a very unsexy thing (book selling),
and is just revolutionizing business processes. Amazon is quite an impressive
company.

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jkneib
It will probably also lower the total costs for returned items. You cannot re-
ship an item when the plastic packaging has been damaged, even if the item
itself has not been touched.

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alecco
Great idea. It says the manufacturers do the package "out of the assembly
line!" That's very clever, I'm sure Amazon is saving on packaging things for
shipping.

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yarek
The "frustration-free packaging" is incidental. The whole point is that Amazon
will be saving a lot of money by not shipping empty air around. If you can
send the same thing in a smaller package, this means you can fit more packages
in a singe shipment to the warehouse, ship more things from a warehose to the
distributor, and also send more things in a delivery truck at the end of the
delivery process. Everyone saves along the way, meanwhile the customer gets a
"furstration free" package, which truthfully, is probably easier to open,
incidentally.

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jmatt
I'm sure it's cheaper for the manufacturer to package too. More efficient all
around and no reason not to do it if it's already mail order.

[edit: clarification~]

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mynameishere
I guess I'm confused. The video doesn't help:

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=1234279011>

Why are they trying to pretend that traditional boxes are difficult to open?
They aren't. Also, how exactly are they going to protect the product from
shipping damage? It seems like packing foam or similar materials can't be used
with the new boxes.

Do they not realize that...especially with toys, but lots of things...the
packaging is part of the charm? To me, an item in a cardboard box is a factory
reject or OEM. A child would likely reject a toy that didn't have the
packaging of a store item.

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petercooper
_To me, an item in a cardboard box is a factory reject or OEM. A child would
likely reject a toy that didn't have the packaging of a store item._

And that's an attitude worth changing in order to cut down on the ridiculous
amount of packaging many products use (including non-recyclable plastics,
etc). If it takes someone as big as Amazon to do it, bravo.

The whole glitzy packaging thing is a reasonably new invention anyway. When I
was a kid things tended to come in cardboard boxes (though printed on).
Playing with boxes was as fun as the toy often times!

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mynameishere
There's exactly zero chance that store shelves will contain boxes similar to
ones that Amazon is using here. Therefore, there will always be two kinds: 1)
The displayable kind, and 2) The shipping kind.

Listen: I'm the _last person_ in the whole world who cares what packaging
looks like. But the fact is, lots of people do, and these boxes' success will
be correspondingly limited.

This whole thread is insane though. They're really doing nothing more than
10,000,000 ebay sellers have been all along. Getting manufacturers to do it is
just a way of shifting costs, as Walmart is doing with RFID tags (though the
total costs probably go down some, which is good).

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petercooper
_There's exactly zero chance that store shelves will contain boxes similar to
ones that Amazon is using here. Therefore, there will always be two kinds: 1)
The displayable kind, and 2) The shipping kind._

In the short term, sure. But the world changes a lot more than we think, over
time. The Walmart shopping experience, as it is today, would be unfathomable
to someone from even the 1970s.

Consider the success of "no frills" groceries over the last 10 years (a
success that is increasing due to the credit crunch). Many who wouldn't leave
their chosen brands for certain products are migrating to cheaper alternatives
with incredibly dull packaging. It's a bit of a conceptual jump for toys to be
the same, but I suspect it'll happen when we realize how superficial the 90s
and 00s "were" (speaking from a, say, 2020s perspective).

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tdavis
They should start by not sending a packet of page markers the size of a credit
card in a box large enough to ship a small child in. And i'm pretty sure
_paper_ doesn't really need to have fancy air-pillow wrapping filling the box.
A shipping envelope would suffice.

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mattmaroon
First they should just make their boxes suck less. If I could open them
without a box cutter, I'd be ecstatic.

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cstejerean
supposedly not needing a box cutter to open these new boxes is part of the
plan. From their site "It's designed to be opened without the use of a box
cutter or knife..."

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mattmaroon
Right, but that's only for third party stuff that uses Amazon's boxing system.
I just want the normal Amazon packages I've been getting for a decade to not
suck, since that's near 100% of them now.

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axod
just use a key :/ Not really an issue is it?

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vaksel
I'd actually prefer the frustration-full packaging. + If you are gifting in
this box, it just screams re-gifting to me.

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Prrometheus
You say that now, until you buy a USB flash drive or a CD and while opening it
you nearly destroy the product or you cut yourself to the point that you bleed
prodigiously all over it.

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vaksel
how do you manage to cut yourself when opening a box?

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pmjordan
You must not have encountered the hard, welded plastic envelopes in which they
typically sell small electronic goods. (where the hell do you live?) They're
effectively impossible to open without a very sturdy set of scissors, and even
then it's easy to scratch your hand when you get impatient and try to fish out
your device.

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vaksel
Ah thats why. I use a box cutter to open my packages. That way nobody gets
hurt.

