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Comment by x5n1 | Hacker News Reader

$90 .. meh, a lot of people would see the value in that.

Problem is that Amazon's gift wrapping is crap. They just throw it into a blue felt bag and attach a gift note.

I've only seen the blue felt bag once, when buying my wife some (cheap) jewelry. For items big enough, they use plain blue wrapping paper. That's what I usually see. It seems like a perfectly adequate wrapping job to me -- certainly better than my notoriously uncoordinated self would do.

For the record, Amazon charged me 3.95 per item for gift wrapping. I don't know if it changes based on the size of the item, whether you're a Prime member (I am), or other factors. But it's not always $6.

For $6/item they should offer more choices on how it is to be wrapped. I would say at least 6-12 different kinds of paper.

I agree. I think a lot of people would feel more comfortable using a gift wrapping service if those same people could pick their own wrapping paper, which, in the end, would mean more $ for Amazon.

How would you handle that at the warehouse though? Amazon is all about efficiency.

robot.

My son received the game Operation for Christmas from his grandparents. That game came from Amazon in a blue felt bag.

My girlfriend gave my family presents. All presents (7+ ?) came in felt bags.

Maybe it has more to do with the warehouse of origin than the size of the item. Did they run out of paper and resort to bags? Is there some reason they'd use paper in one warehouse but bags in another? Perhaps one hasn't been fitted with the advanced paper-wrapping robot and it's quick to just drop it in a bag? It'd be really interesting to learn what dictates the wrapping material.

What I've seen for much larger items (projector) is a big blue bag.

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