
Packaging Is All the Rage, and Not in a Good Way (2010) - JumpCrisscross
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/technology/08packaging.html?_r=0
======
simonsarris
> But the frustration persists. Only about 600 of the millions of products
> Amazon sells come in frustration-free versions.

That's horseshit, I thought, then I saw that the article is from 2010.

Today Amazon has way, way more:
[http://www.amazon.com/b?node=5521637011](http://www.amazon.com/b?node=5521637011)

> "16 of 55,642 results for Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging"

I don't use my car often, so I find myself ordering little things from Amazon
all the time (1-2 packages a week, lots of books, pens, camera stuff, cables,
small electronics, household necessities, vacuum bags, cleaning supplies,
etc). In the past two years _lots_ of it has been frustration-free. Kudos to
Amazon for what they've done in the meantime.

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potatolicious
Wow, blast from the past. I worked on frustration-free packaging at Amazon
back then (the article is from 2010). 'Twas an interesting gig.

~~~
sizzle
can you give us some personal anecdotes, I'm genuinely curious to hear your
story.

~~~
jacquesm
I'm not sure about his personal anecdotes but having recently almost found one
of my fingers amputated after trying to get an SD card out of its theft proof
package after shopping on the go I think that frustration free packaging
should be mandatory and should be re-branded as injury free packaging. That
plastic is as sharp as any knife and it can _really_ get you while you're
trying to retrieve your goodies without access to proper tools.

~~~
ggreer
This sort of outlook is untenable in almost every other domain. For example,
we don't ban bottles requiring an opener, even though many foolish people lose
teeth or otherwise injure themselves trying to open them.[1]

If I understand correctly, you went to a store, saw a hard-to-open package,
and bought it. Then you used incorrect tools and/or techniques to open it and
almost seriously injured yourself. Now you want to pass a law banning said
packaging? I'm confused by the moral and ethical view that puts such a
responsibility upon companies. You're the one pushing a knife toward your own
fingers.[2]

You could simply avoid buying products with bad packaging. You could also
contact companies that do have poor packaging and give them a piece of your
mind. And if you do buy something that's hard to open, use the right tools the
right way! Always cut away from yourself. And remember: Sharper knives are
safer. They require less pressure to cut, meaning something will be less
likely to slip. Frustrating packaging is not a new thing, and these rules
apply when using any cutting tool.

1\. If you're willing to bite that bullet and say all bottles must be twist-
off, I'm OK with that. That reasoning can lead to a lot of other weird things
though.

2\. It occurs to me that many people may not know how to use knives safely. It
was in Boy Scouts that I was taught to always cut away from yourself, not
school.

~~~
jacquesm
> So if I understand correctly, you went to a store, saw a hard-to-open
> package, and bought it. Then you used incorrect tools and/or technique to
> open it and almost seriously injured yourself.

No, it looks like you don't understand correctly at all.

I _did_ injure myself in spite of being _very_ good with tools and general
tradecraft, to the point of having had my own machine shop. If I can get
injured with such packaging so could you and just about everybody else.

As far as I'm concerned there is no good reason to package things like this
for general consumption, but here we are. Opening a package like this results
in razor sharp plastic edges using just about any technique that I am aware
of.

Using your teeth for bottle opening is just dumb, trying to open a plastic
package with the aid of a pair of scissors is really all it should take.
Unfortunately that stuff is a bit tougher than it sometimes looks with
surprising results even for the seasoned.

As for the 'correct technique' I would love to be enlightened.

~~~
vacri
_As for the 'correct technique' I would love to be enlightened._

Depending on the clamshell, it may be easier to cut at the bubble rather than
at the edge. In this case you're dealing with a thin, easily cut bit of flat
plastic, rather than a corrugated thick plastic weld. This requires a knife
rather than scissors, though sometimes you may be able to get away with using
a single scissor blade. This is just a technique that sometimes helps; I
wouldn't give it the officialness of 'correct' :)

~~~
jacquesm
The tensile strength of the packaging (about 0.8 mm worth of it) is such that
you need brute force to even pierce it.

Maybe a chopping block as a base and a stanley knife should be part and parcel
of any tourist's apparel about to buy an SD card.

------
rdl
Plastic clamshells bothered me a lot less once I discovered how to use a
manual can-opener (I love the OXO model, from Amazon:
[http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Can-
Opener/dp/B00004OCJ...](http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Can-
Opener/dp/B00004OCJW)

Much safer (for hands and for product) than a knife or scissors.

~~~
analog31
That sounds like a lot better idea than my tin snips and leather gloves. I'll
try it next time.

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jwdunne
Oh Christ, I was just thinking today how stupid packaging winds me up. From
what I recall, I don't have this experience with amazon purchases!

For example, the packaging that requires scissors and a spare pair for backup
really does my head in. The backup in case I break the first pair, which has
actually happened to me.

Another one is the corner tag on food packaging which either is stuck down as
well as the rest of the film or it rips off the film AROUND the glue, leaving
absolutely no hope of pulling it off the sane way and forcing me to use a
knife, which by that point makes me look like a scary individual. By this
poiny, I'm slightly more pissed off that I've got used cutlery without
actually eating mr making anything.

I actually get really wound up and even consider complaining to trading
standards. After all what good is a product if I can't bloody open it?

I can see why it would affect product ratings.

~~~
vacri
Clamshell packaging is an anti-theft mechanism, as the article mentions. It's
a lot harder to pocket something that's encased in a wide plastic sheet, and
even if you do, the number of items you can pocket is significantly reduced.

Given that retailers only make 20-40% of the final price of the product,
having a couple of items stolen costs them a lot more than your couple of
minutes of irritation costs you. The packaging isn't stupid, it's just not
optimised solely for you (as the article states, web and brick stores have
different needs here).

~~~
sitkack
I wanted to make this a top level comment, but it belongs here.

Clamshell packaging has more to do with preventing returns than preventing
theft. People feel like they have destroyed some of the product to open it, so
are very very reluctant to return it.

~~~
vacri
It can do both - if clamshell packaging wasn't really for preventing theft,
then the plastic sheets wouldn't be so much larger than the product. Large
objects take more room and cost more to handle.

------
bbarn
Let's not forget one thing about the old plastic awful packaging: We're not
the target audience.

Manufacturers went down this road for a reason, and that reason is (or used to
be) looking appealing on a store shelf, without being able to just take it.
You can put a pretty picture on the box, but the draw of "that's the thing I
want, and I can almost play with it" is hard to deny. Dual mode packaging is a
step in the right direction for sure, but really, it's about reducing costs,
being able to slap a shipping label directly onto the box, and not repacking
it - all to save in shipping costs.

Having Walmart, Amazon, etc repackage (pun intended) saving shipping costs
under the guise of frustration-free, eco-friendly, whatever, is brilliant, but
at the end of the day, it's only purpose is to increase margins.

~~~
bbarn
My point with the above though, wasn't to villify saving costs - only one of
two possible modes of business success (reduce expense, increase income)

The problem I see is when a manufacturer starts to say "This is good enough
for amazon, what's your problem" to typical retailers. This could start
causing problems with your traditional retailers. Which, some might say is a
good thing, disrupting, all that, but then, when enough of the old way is
gone, and most of the market is through online stores, why stay so cheap? Why
wouldn't amazon, etc. just start increasing prices to meet demand? We've
already seen this starting with the decrease of value in Prime, the end of the
tax free hey-day, etc. If our ultimate deliverable in the new internet market
is just that we've moved local to online at what the cost used to be locally,
we kind of start to fail after a while, don't we?

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patmcguire
Who can change titles? Should note it's from 2010 since so much has changed
since then.

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saidajigumi
Related, I rather miss the trial balloon that was the Amazon Tote service.
Items were delivered in large reusable tote bags which they'd take back on the
next delivery, akin to the crates used by Amazon Fresh. IIRC, tote delivery
was free but incurred a delay to a specific one or two days per week of
delivery service for any given location.

I _really_ liked that Tote eliminated so much packaging needed for
conventional shippers including shipping boxes, airfills, and so forth.

~~~
rdl
I miss the Webvan crates from ~2000. They charged a small deposit ($3?), but I
ended up collecting about 50 of them when Webvan went out of business.

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gdubs
The biggest packing fail has got to be the scissors that come in sealed
plastic that can only be opened with scissors.

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twic
Thought this was going to be about postinstall scripts in debs.

