Amazon.com’s New “Frustration-Free Packaging” Is Eco- And Customer-Friendly

I still have a scar on my finger from when I sliced it up with a scalpel while trying to open the absurdly difficult packaging around a pair of Sennheiser headphones. Gadget packaging is notoriously difficult to open, especially headphones. In 2004, around 6,500 Americans went to hospital emergency rooms because of injuries they received while trying to open their newly bought gadgets and toys. Being a consumer can be dangerous business.

Companies design their packaging that way to deter shoplifters from just popping open the box and making off with the goods. But with more and more commerce happening online as opposed to in an actual brick and mortar establishment, shoplifting is becoming irrelevant. Amazon.com has realized this and started a new packaging initiative that they hope will not only please customers, but also help the environment.

Amazon’s new idea is called Frustration-Free Packaging. The program, which started today, means Amazon will be shipping certain products in easy-to-open boxes made of recyclable material instead of the traditional all-plastic, impossible-to-open packaging they’d normally come in. Microsoft, Fisher-Price, and Mattel are some of the first companies to sign up, although Amazon hopes to have their entire catalog participating eventually. Here’s a complete list of the toys and consumer electronics offered in Frustration-Free packaging right now.

Amazon even has a video about the new packaging system.

The program is about more than just easy open boxes though, the hope is that it’ll benefit the environment as well. Less plastic means more recyclable material and smaller boxes; smaller boxes means less space taken up on the delivery truck; less space on the truck means less gas consumed and maybe even less trips needed to deliver all the packages. All that combined means less waiting for the customer too. All around, everybody wins.

Check out the official press release from Amazon.com:

Amazon Announces Beginning of Multi-Year Frustration-Free Packaging Initiative

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nov. 3, 2008–Amazon.com has launched “Frustration-Free Packaging,” a new initiative designed to make it easier for customers to liberate products from their packages. 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.

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 product is exactly the same – Amazon has just streamlined the packaging. The project will expand across Amazon’s international sites beginning in 2009.

“I think we’ve all experienced the frustration that sometimes occurs when you try to get a new toy or electronics product out of its package,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “It will take many years, but our vision is to offer our entire catalog of products in Frustration-Free Packaging. We’d like to thank Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend for working with us in this effort – we truly appreciate it.”

In addition to making packages easier to open, a major goal of the Frustration-Free Packaging initiative is to be more environmentally friendly by using less packaging material.

One of the first products to launch with Frustration-Free Packaging is the Fisher-Price Imaginext Adventures Pirate Ship, which is now delivered in an easy-to-open, recyclable cardboard box. The new packaging eliminates 36 inches of plastic-coated wire ties, 1,576.5 square inches of printed corrugated package inserts and 36.1 square inches of printed folding carton materials. Also eliminated are 175.25 square inches of PVC blisters, 3.5 square inches of ABS molded styrene and two molded plastic fasteners.

Small items, such as memory cards, are also good candidates for Frustration-Free Packaging. Typically encased in oversized plastic clamshells to deter shoplifting, memory cards are then placed inside larger cardboard boxes for shipment to customers. Working with Transcend, Amazon has eliminated the hard-to-open clamshell and the need for an additional box. Instead, the cards will now ship inside recyclable cardboard envelopes which use less material. Amazon is working to shrink the envelope size even further.

Customers can order select items from Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend in the new Frustration-Free Packaging for immediate delivery. The current collection of Frustration-Free products can be seen by going to www.amazon.com/packaging.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as books, movies, music & games, digital downloads, electronics & computers, home & garden, toys, kids & baby, grocery, apparel, shoes & jewelry, health & beauty, sports & outdoors, and tools, auto & industrial.

Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS), and Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, and the Joyo Amazon websites at www.joyo.cn and www.amazon.cn.

As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, significant amount of indebtedness, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007, and subsequent filings.