Online Retailers Say NO to Clamshell Packaging
Last month, Amazon.com introduced their newest packaging system, when it sent out this letter to all of their online customers.
This move is now being followed by other online sites like Best Buy and Sony Microsoft. They, too, are gearing up for a more user-friendly, environmentally-sound packaging.
In fact, this video release will show how much committed they are to this new cause.
I for one am very pleased to know this. Most online shoppers are aware of how rigid unwrapping packages are, especially gadgets.
The New York Times ran this story about it last month. Here are some excerpts from the article:
Impregnable packaging has incited such frustration among consumers that an industry term has been coined for it — “wrap rage.” It has sent about 6,000 Americans each year to emergency rooms with injuries caused by trying to pry, stab and cut open their purchases, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
“I shouldn’t have to start each Christmas morning with a needle nose pliers and wire cutters,” said Jeffrey P. Bezos, the father of four young children and founder of Amazon.com. “But that is what I do, I arm myself, and it still takes me 10 minutes to open each package.”
This month, Mr. Bezos pledged to lead the charge into a new era of nonhostile containers.
In Amazon’s “frustration-free packaging” initiative involving Mattel, its subsidiary Fisher-Price, Microsoft and Transcend, an electronics maker, the companies will ship some of their best-selling products to Amazon in cardboard boxes that don’t fight back. Mr. Bezos hopes to sell all of Amazon’s products in such environmentally benign, consumer-friendly packaging — a goal he said would take years to achieve. “Everyone is excited about this project here,” he said. “Everyone had their own war stories.”
Such a campaign is relatively easy for Amazon, of course, because it does not need to worry about how products appear as they dangle from pegs on store shelves, or whether items will disappear inside shoppers’ jacket pockets.
But even offline companies that do have those concerns are joining the movement. Microsoft recently unveiled an unusual container for the Explorer computer mice it sells at Best Buy. The mouse looks typically imprisoned in its package at first glance. But the container actually has a plastic zipper on each side — inspired by the packaging of food items, Microsoft said — with blue arrows that guide buyers into easily unlocking their purchase.
Sony, meanwhile, has started an ambitious internal project it optimistically calls “death of the clamshell.” The electronics giant is developing three packaging prototypes it plans to test in the coming months at Best Buy and Wal-Mart Stores. One uses an adhesive that is easy to pry open but makes a loud Velcro-like noise — intended to deter thieves.
Sony has even taken its anticlamshell campaign to its rank and file. At its annual sales and marketing meeting in April, held in Palm Desert, Calif., the company showed 1,200 employees a humorous video of four consumers struggling to open Sony products. One of them resorted to a hacksaw, another used his teeth and a third cut his finger.
“None of us intentionally tried to make this a hassle for consumers,” said Mike Fasulo, chief marketing officer for Sony.
