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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday July 31 2019, @05:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-wait-for-the-Matryoshka-packager-with-multiple,-nested-boxes dept.

Amazon May Start Fining Sellers for Using Ridiculously Huge Boxes:

Amazon wants to make massive, hard-to-open boxes a thing of the past, according to a Tuesday report. Last fall, the e-commerce giant asked companies to make packaging for larger items more efficient and easier to open by Aug. 1, The Wall Street Journal reports. If companies don't follow suit, they'll reportedly be charged a fine.

The changes Amazon reportedly hopes to roll out would make packages more environmentally friendly and cut back on shipping costs. Amazon wants all items to eventually meet similar standards, according to the Journal.

Vendors told the Journal they reduced the volume of their packaging anywhere from 34% to 80%. Some also cut down on the number of components used to ship their products.


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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @03:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 31 2019, @03:43PM (#873585)

    large packaging is silly, particularly when there is no threat of shoplifting or durability issues of sitting on a store shelf.

    While the shoplifting reason is somewhat valid (a huge box is harder to hide and walk out with), durability is not why the boxes are huge on the shelves.

    They are huge on the shelves because the marketing department has found that large boxes increase sales. They do this in several ways, one, the larger box is more noticeable, esp. if it is also sitting beside multiple small boxes. Second, the larger box crowds out competitors on the shelf, sometimes to the point that a store will stock fewer competing products. Fewer competing products translates to more sales for each of the remaining products.

    Now, none of the above matters (other than maybe a bit of the "crowd out competitors") when purchases are made via a web browser and shipped from a warehouse. So what will likely come from Amazon's push is makers producing two differently "boxed" items. One, huge, with lots of air inside, for the "eye candy" pop on retail store shelves, and a second, the "Amazon version" that is small, compact, and minimized to just fit the product and nothing more.

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