Amazon.com wants to make packaging 'frustrating-free'

Amazon.com wants to ease the frustration of customers this holiday season and beyond by making packaging compact and green instead of bulky and irritating.

Amazon will work with retailers to provide compact packaging that uses fewer materials before shipping products to customers. Instead of pre-boxed or plastic-sealed items inside an Amazon box, the company will send items in plain brown cardboard boxes. The company issued the following statement about the Frustration-Free packaging policy:

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. The product itself is exactly the same—we’ve just streamlined the packaging.

Take for example, digital camera memory cards: Previous packaging was bulky and difficult to open without a knife, despite the items being very small. The packaging is meant to deter shoplifting at stores, but it causes immense frustration to customers at home.

Amazon.com

Frustration-Free Packaging

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To avoid this problem, Amazon will ship the memory card in a flat recycled cardboard envelope. The company is working with Transcend to facilitate this frustration-free packaging. Similarly, Amazon is working with Fisher-Prince, Microsoft and other companies. The new packaging will use fewer materials and will be easy to open, hence the Frustration-Free name. This new packaging won’t be available until next year. Until then, you won't be able to avoid cursing when opening packages.