Amazon Moving To Frustration-Free Packaging
amazon.com
amazon.com
Congratulations, Amazon. Way to use your size for good.
http://distributedrepublic.net/archives/2008/11/03/concentra...
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.
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.
Still, I'm all for it, mostly because it means less waste. I'd love to see this spread even to stores and such, where you had a display item and then a boring, recyclable package.
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.
That makes me smile. Excellent point and better holidays for all.
I hope this one catches on.
[edit: clarification~]
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.
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!
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).
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).
This will take off big time hopefully.
Probably costs less for them too.
What is so interesting in this case is that it is a sign of how people's tastes are changing. These new, simple Amazon packages have more 'charm', not less. People are excited by the thought that they're being 'green'. The simple cardboard packaging speaks to the current love of simple, clean and even perhaps DIY design. Simple is charming right now, and Amazon must be keenly aware that this is a smart move both for their bottom line as well as their customer satisfaction ratings.
Open outer box -> scissors required for massive plastic bits -> about 20 twisty wire things holding everything in place -> sometimes screws holding more stuff in place.
It's not fun for a kid to watch his parents struggling for ages to open a toy. That's not fun. They don't care about the box, it goes in the bin. Fantastic idea from Amazon, I've been waiting for this for ages.
From a frustration standpoint - they look easier to wrap. Now a days I can barely wrap a lot of these squirrelly toy packages.