Amazon Launches "Frustration-Free Packaging"

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."

Comments

Re:I'll be happy if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn in your geek card. A short will develope and the cord will get hot and degrade the heat shrink and the now molten hot solder will work it's way to something vital such as the expensive rackmount server that some schmuck put under it. *banghead*
Wow, no one told me a breaker could fail to trip long enough to do that....

Replacing the cord is optimal, using the proper crimped splice, the proper heat shrink and heat shrinking technique is the next best. Last now and forever is a soldered connection on anything AC except in a carefully controlled location with redundant fuses. That would be inside the electronics. Any engineer that does NOT use redundant fuses should be dragged out and dipped in molten solder. That's you you crisco using Cisco cretins!

Re:lawsuits...

[pyite]

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.

Boohoo. I doubt the coffee was reheated in a microwave. Even if it was, the superheating effect generally doesn't happen with styrofoam or paper cups because the insides are pretty rough. Even if it does happen, as soon as you touch the container, the liquid flash boils. I've done it (in ceramic as it's a smooth surface). So even if was superheated, it would have flash boiled by the time she got the cup, hence reducing the temperature to a maximum of 100 degrees celsius. I don't know about you, but I pretty much assume coffee and tea is going to be 100 degrees celsius. That's why I don't pour it over my legs. If I were to, I would suffer the consequences, maybe including not having my stupid genes copied to another human.

Re:Best packaging innovation ever

[roc97007]

>> So, you're saying that as consumers, we have to put up with annoying, wasteful packaging that we didn't ask for, which doesn't serve any direct purpose to us, and we should pay a tax on it to boot?

> Yes. > Because then we don't buy the product as it's too expensive, which forces the manufacturer to cut those costs.

You voted for Obama, didn't you? Let's say I need a SD card for my camera. Every single brand comes in a blister pack, because of the perception that SD cards are too easy to steal and the stores can't get it together to find a different way to dispense them. (This is closer to what we're actually talking about. We can talk about milk delivery another time if you wish -- it's an interesting subject.) As a consumer, I detest this practice for its inconvenience and wastefulness. You're saying that nevertheless it's still my fault for having a need for a product that is only packaged in this fashion? And you're honestly suggesting that the manufacturer can be persuaded to change their packaging by a new tax on the consumer?