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Amazon Launches "Frustration-Free Packaging"
Posted by
kdawson
on Monday November 03, @08:11PM
from the save-the-earth-and-keep-more-of-your-fingers dept.
from the save-the-earth-and-keep-more-of-your-fingers dept.
mallumax notes Amazon's new Frustration-Free Packaging initiative. Over several years the retailer hopes to convince many of its suppliers to offer consumer-friendlier packaging. It's starting with just 19 products from Mattel, Fisher-Price, Microsoft, and Transcend. Until this program spreads to more products, better get one of these (ThinkGeek and Slashdot share a corporate overlord). From Amazon's announcement: "The Frustration-Free Package is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It's designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging. Products with Frustration-Free Packaging can frequently be shipped in their own boxes, without an additional shipping box. Amazon works directly with manufacturers to box products in Frustration-Free Packages right off the assembly lines, which reduces the overall amount of packing materials used."
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Best packaging innovation ever (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Best packaging innovation ever (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Best packaging innovation ever (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you realize how cheap those blister packs are, or the economy of scale in packaging everything a given manufacturer makes in the same kind of packaging (even if not the same size). Different kinds of packaging require different kinds of very expensive machines to handle, and that means different assembly lines that can't be easily converted to a product that uses the other kind of packaging. And so on.
Plus, at the retail end, anything the requires a key to sell requires, if not a manager, at least a senior employeed who has been vetted more throughly than the average cahsier.
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Re:Best packaging innovation ever (Score:5, Informative)
I can tell you have never worked in retail management. Now you have to a) train all your cashiers not simple "call a manager/whatever to open the lockup case," but rather at least two (or maybe more) tiers of "if customer wants x, call manager, but if customer wants y, call Joe the Department Manager, but if customer wants z, call Barb the Head Cashier." You also have to train the manager, Joe, and Barb in all this, as well. And no training is perfect (and cashier and sales rarely make more than minimum wage, with expected effects on their skill set), so you also back up the lines with each error made. Plus, you now have multiple lockup cases, which a) require more management to keep functioning properly, and b) require yet more multiple levels of training, different for different employees, as to what goes in which case.
Plus, you're now gow multiple sets of security systems, all different, to maintain, both physically, and as part of your security policy.
All in an industry with a net profit margin under 5%, and often under 3%.
If you've never run a retail store, you cannot even imagine the value of economy of scale, and consistenty in training across all employee positions. And few things cost you money faster than a stoppage at a cash register because the minimum wage cashier can't remember who has the key to the right lockup case (or even which lockup case the goods are in).
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Re:Best packaging innovation ever (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything that requires a key requires basically any lackey who works in that department to unlock. No seniority at all.
Having been involved in retail management for 25+ years, I can tell you, with certainty, that if it's worth locking up at all, it's worth your minimum wage sales drone's effort to steal. Far more theft in most retails stores is by employees than by customers.
At many stores security usually does an audit at the end of each night to check for theft in all locked areas
And at far more, that would require hiring security personnel (who are more expensive to employ, and a lot more expensive to hire, since there's no point in hiring a security person who hasn't been vetted with a background check, unless you want them to organize the employee theft ring) specifically to review those tapes, because most stores that have anything worth locking up have quite a bit worth locking up. And, generally speaking, a lot of it is dispersed enough that it's not under a camera. Cameras (and recording systems) are rather expensive, especially if you expect to be able to actually identify even someone you know in the video, and installing them is a lot more expensive. At most retailers that even have security cameras, less than 10% of the total sales floor is recorded by one. And your minimum wage employees won't even have to figure out which lockup cases aren't watched, since that will be part of their orientation (if you know how to run your store).
The only solution to virtually any security/shoplifting problem in a retail store is, ultimately, to spend money. Generally quite a bit of it. Which comes out of your 3-5% profit margin.
Retail's a bitch of a business.
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lawsuits... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:lawsuits... (Score:5, Insightful)
That woman who sued over hot coffee was not simply whining about scalding her hands. She went to the hospital with 3rd degree burns. Probably the coffee had been reheated in a microwave. One hazard of heating liquids this way is that you can make them superhot [wikipedia.org] without causing them to boil.
Anyway, we both know that people's hatred for blister packs has nothing to do with the risk of personal injury. (I have several scars on my hands from cutting vegetables or slicing bagels. Not one from opening a blister pack.) It's the extreme frustration you experience while you try to cut away enough plastic to get at the contents. Unfortunately "frustation" aint tortable.
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Re:lawsuits... (Score:5, Insightful)
You can dance around it all you like... but it doesn't change the end result. People every day are injured in some way by this "two plastic bubbles melted together" method of packaging. Because it practically requires bladed weapons to open.
I have instructions on jars that tell me to twist open a cap... I'd say the whole twist cap thing is pretty self explanatory, yet people feel the need to put instructions on how to open jars.
You know why there's no instructions on how to open a solid lump of plastic? Because it being able to be opened isn't on their mind at all... not that it isn't their "main concern". They'd put it in a solid lead bubble with a cytotoxic theft deterrent system, but sadly that costs them more money.
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Re:lawsuits... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they did, tin snips still aren't very effective at getting open blister packs safely unless you're wearing heavy work gloves, in my experience. You'll still end up with a sharp edge whipping around, even if you're not ripping it open with your hands (which is undoubtably unsafe).
The fact that we have to have this discussion at all just goes to show the level of insanity that went into blister packs.
Frustration-free packaging can't come soon enough. I hope Amazon works out a deal with CD and DVD distributers too. They're not blister pack-dangerous, but still a major pain in the ass.
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Re:lawsuits... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:lawsuits... (Score:5, Insightful)
The package doesn't maim the customer, the customer maims themself(sic). There is a proper way to open a package, sometimes it's not all that clear, but it is possible to open a package without causing bodily harm. It's not all that apparent, but quite a bit of thought goes into designing a package; sadly, the end-user isn't always the main concern.
That's the defence that Detroit used to fight the safety features that they were dragged kicking and screaming into introducing by Ralph Nader. Initially they blamed the victims instead of taking responsibility for producing dangerous products.
I'm sorry, but packaging should protect the product AND be possible to access safely. If there's no obvious way to use it and avoid injury, the designer is at fault.
There is no way that I have discovered to get into a clamshell without running the risk of serious injury either from the metal blade that I have to use to cut it, or the plastic blade that is formed when using scissors and always ends up pointing into the path of my oncoming hand.
Whoever invented plastic clamshells should be sentenced to an eternity of sitting in a dark room opening one of his creations after another.
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Re:lawsuits... (Score:5, Informative)
You expect hot coffee to be well, hot. It's supposed to be freshly boiled water. Otherwise it is luke warm.
You cook pies at a temperature of 350 F, but you don't serve them to people right out of the oven. Why does coffee get a free pass to be served at temperatures that cause third degree burns in only 2-7 seconds of contact, as in the famous McDonald's case?
It would be one thing if McDonald's was selling cups of molten lava with a warning that clearly said, "Don't let the stuff touch you until it cools, you freaking morons!" but one generally expects FOOD to be safe to touch to your body.
Also, it should be easy to add cream and sugar to a cup of coffee without dumping it all over yourself. McDonald's had bad lid design in that respect too. Furthermore, documents produced in court showed the McD's was well aware of the fact that other customers had suffered third degree burns from their product and continued to sell it in an unsafe manner. They even alleged in court that people who buy coffee mostly take it home or to work and drink it there instead of in the court (which frankly doesn't pass the laugh test).
No, McDonald's was clearly negligent, if not reckless, in their behavior and deserved to be punished for it. Coffee isn't a product that should be that risky to purchase and consume. How exactly does serving coffee at 185 F do anything positive for the customer?
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Re:lawsuits... (Score:5, Insightful)
You expect hot coffee to be well, hot... If you pour hot coffee over yourself, you can expect to be burnt.
The point of the Liebeck case wasn't that the coffee was hot -- she expected that much -- but that it was significantly hotter than coffee is supposed to be. Coffee served at industry standard temperature can sit on bare skin for quite a while without causing more than a mild burn (redness and tenderness), whereas coffee served at the temperature that Ms. Liebeck's coffee was served at can cause third degree burns (requiring skin graft surgery) in as little as 2 seconds.
In other words, coffee is dangerous, but this coffee was significantly more dangerous, therefore she should have been warned.
To put it in perspective: everyone has spilled coffee on themselves at some point in their lives (I've done it, and I don't even drink coffee). Yet her coffee spill resulted in $11,000 in medical bills. Can you not see the difference between this and a normal coffee spill?
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They could also call this (Score:5, Insightful)
"Laceration-Free Packaging" as far as that cursed clamshell packaging goes. I hate that crap, good riddance.
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Re:They could also call this (Score:5, Funny)
And I always figured that this packaging would end when someone hijacked a plane with it.
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I'm not crying, I just have something in my eye! (Score:5, Insightful)
*sniff* I never thought the day would come!
Seriously, as a parent, I've seen packaging on kids toys get progressively worse. Not just ultrasonic-sealed plastic clamshells, but toys attached to cardboard boxes with dozens (sometimes over a hundred) wire twist-ties and highly strecthy rubber-band-like straps.
It took me over an hour just to de-package ONE toy for my kid last Christmas. Seriously, there is no excuse for such obnoxious packaging. I, for one, will be keeping a close eye on this initiative and it will likely make me look at Amazon first for my purchases.
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Re:I'm not crying, I just have something in my eye (Score:5, Funny)
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Shoplifting (Score:5, Interesting)
The current trend in packaging was for two reasons. It allowed the consumer to actually *see* the produce he/she was getting. And it reduced shoplifting. Big box retailers (rhymes with ball-cart) pushed for these even though the consumer didn't want it.
Fortunately, sites like Amazon can now pressure manufacturers to go back to the more traditional packaging. Maybe I'll finally be able to wrap birthday gifts without needing an additional box/bag. And on Christmas morning, my hands won't be sore from opening 200 packages, cutting wire-ties and tie-wraps, and dealing with having to unscrew the frickin' battery compartments.
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Better opener (Score:5, Informative)
That thing on thinkgeek is a piece of crap. It's a flimsy knife with a weird handle. This is much more effective [amazon.com]. And cheaper (since you get three). And you can cut metal with them. They're called tin snips. AKA, the manly alternative to the overpiced ones designed by and for women [amazon.com].
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Re:I'll be happy if... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I'll be happy if... (Score:5, Funny)
I can't help it! I'm a discrete math major. I'm like 5 layers away from the soldering iron!
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Re:I'll be happy if... (Score:5, Funny)
If he has a knife sharp enough to accidentally cut through 2 gauge wire, we should probably let him keep his geek card.
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Re:How about frustration free snack bags? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Good for them and all, but let's be honest (Score:5, Informative)
Um, what? Of course they'll use it to cut prices. Unlike some companies, Amazon is in a competitive field. And when people are shopping online, it's trivial to comparison shop, so people do. There are plenty of other online retailers selling the same stuff as them, and one of the reasons Amazon does well is that they're cheaper. Sure, they want more profit -- but once they find a way to cut costs, the optimal way to make more profit is to pass some of that cost savings along as a price reduction, in order to attract more customers. Remember, there are two ways to increase profits -- increase margins, and increase units sold. In highly competitive markets, the optimal use for any cost cutting measure will be a mix of the two.
Sure, you won't see the whole reduction passed along (at least not until everyone is doing it and they can't afford not to), but who cares? The stuff gets cheaper, and friendlier for the environment, and less frustrating to open. I rather like this idea.
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Re:Frustration? Try tamper free (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never injured myself with the tool used to open hard plastic clamshell packaging before.
I have, however, had my fingers or hands cut open numerous times by the cut, torn, or ripped edge of the plastic itself when the packaging finally gave way to my cutting implement. I tell you, Boy Scout training on knife safety when cutting wood or animal skins does Jack to teach you about how to open nightmare packaging.
Happens with scissors, knifes, box cutters, or whatever. It's the plastic that scratches me up. I'll admit to being a klutz, but that style of packaging is just an irritating menace.
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