Just in time for the overly packaged holiday season, we are thrilled to see that Amazon is debuting a new eco-friendly idea called ‘Frustration Free Packaging’. If you’ve ever tried to open a plastic package twice the size of the product inside and ended up with box cutters in one hand and carpal tunnel syndrome in the other you may know ‘wrap rage.’ Then once you finally got the plastic off, you still had 18 wires to unwind and a mountain of mostly unrecyclable trash. The folks at Amazon are working hard to remedy this problem with the introduction of Frustration-Free packaging. Amazon is working with manufacturers to eliminate dreadful clamshell packages for simpler brown boxes. Not only will it make wrapping and unwrapping much easier, but these boxes can broken down like any other and recycled.
Thats so good. The amount of plastic that gets thrown out during the Christmas period is absolutely shocking. I dont understand how companies can continue to use packaging like this!
Amazon is a great place to do this as the product selling is done online and doesn’t need to be presented for shelf appeal. The next step is to apply these principles to products on shelves in a way that doesn’t diminish their marketability.
One other concern is that depending on how this is implemented this may not be a green solution at all, but an increase in waste if these products are simply unpackaged and repackaged at amazon. Has anyone confirmed that they are leaving the factory in Amazon frustration free packaging? If so, then hooray for Amazon!
That’s the way every packaging should be !!!!
Nice one, Amazon! If product companies were motivated, they could exploit creative opportunities for providing shelf appeal with a single marketing display, rather than repeating the marketing info and packaging in each unit.
SPG: According to the Amazon Web site, products go directly from assembly line to frustration-free package:
“Does Amazon throw away the original retail packaging and re-box items in Frustration-Free Packaging before shipping them to customers?
No. Instead, we work directly with manufacturers to box products in Frustration-Free Packages right off the assembly lines, which reduces the overall amount of packing materials used.”
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200285450#oldpackage
if you have read the “Wal-Mart Effect” then there is a section in the very beginning about how Wal-M got the deodorant companies to stop packaging their products in a container inside a box and shorten its packaging to just a stick alone. If only more big companies would swing their weight like this, it could save a lot of waste. Next up should be the food packaging industry.
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The change in packaging sounds good for the consumer. The model works because Amazon.com only sells items online. The consumer doesn’t get the product until it is paid for. This works great for everyone. On the other hand, in the world of physical retailing, if you have a store, you have security devices to protect the product. This also works for retailers with physical stores that have to protect their products from consumers. I think that both work out fine if one considers the issue of stealing in retail and that online stores don’t have a physical store except a warehouse where they store the products. As a consumer, it sounds good to have less packaging but I understand the reason it is difficult to open some packaging due to security devices.
[...] rage,” the article went on to explain how some sellers are working to create ‘frustration-free‘ versions of boxes and containers. (This ‘rage’ isn’t exactly uncommon: I [...]