

Amazon.com: Cutting down on Wrap Rage - cwan
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/technology/08packaging.html?_r=1&hpw

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mhb
A nice side benefit for Amazon is that their customers will see the drab
packaging only after buying the product. In contrast, customers browsing in
the b&m stores of Amazon's competitors will take the less appealing packaging
into account before buying.

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angusgr
I got the impression that the "drab packaging" options were only intended for
distribution to internet resellers, not for all-purpose use.

Which I suspect is one of the reasons why this is slow to catch on. I've heard
that one of the reasons why marketing & demo packaging ships in every box for
goods like expensive electronics is that vendors don't know for sure which
cardboard box the B&M retailer will open for display (as opposed to the dozens
out the back), so they just make sure they're all the same. I bet a similar
disincentive applies here, not to mention the extra inventory-tracking
complexity if you suddenly have twice as many product variants.

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brianbreslin
i think the reason they don't see frustration free versions at target and
walmart is they are probably using the same products in online retail they
would ship to local stores. So having two product sets cuts down on their
efficiency/economies of scale.

I wish all products on amazon were frustration free packaging.

There was a story a while back about the guy who invented/worked on the
clamshell packaging getting frustrated, quitting, and starting a company that
sold a special knife to open those packages. fwiw

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uuoc
Please do not post links to the NYT paywall.

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_delirium
Does this vary by region? I get no registration wall when I click through, and
I haven't registered on nytimes.com. Just tried in another browser I never
use, and in Chrome's incognito mode, to make sure I didn't accidentally have a
login cookie saved. I'm in the US, fwiw.

