Thanks to a ’sign of things to come’ move by Amazon, we’re going to start getting less of what we don’t need from our online purchases. Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging, a multi-year initiative designed to alleviate “wrap rage,” features recyclable boxes that are easy to open and free of excess materials such as hard plastic clamshell cases, plastic bindings, and wire ties. Many manufacturers use large packaging to help retailers avoid shoplifting. Web-based retailers, like Amazon, aren’t motivated by such concerns. Amazon is focusing first on two kinds of items: those enclosed in hard plastic cases known as “clamshells” and those secured with plastic-coated wire ties, commonly used in toy packaging. The product itself is exactly the same—they’ve just streamlined the packaging.
Frustration-Free Packaging is being launched in the U.S. with 19 bestselling products from leading manufacturers including Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and electronics manufacturer Transcend. The project will expand across Amazon’s international sites beginning in 2009.
