An Ongoing Nightmare!

Call me old fashioned, but when I purchase a material good, my expectation is that it will provide value.  So why are companies still using excessive packaging to display and ship their items?  I recently purchased a new memory card for my digital camera.  The card was a 1” x 1” square, but was encased in a 7” x 9” plastic clamshell package.  Sure it was made of a recyclable plastic, but wouldn’t it be more sustainable and cost effective to drastically reduce the size of the clamshell itself?  What value did the additional 6” x 8” of plastic provide??

Packaging vs. Brand Messaging

I spent almost twenty years working in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry, and over those years, when my colleagues and I investigated the packaging issue, we were always offered the same explanation to justify the excessive packaging – “It’s about branding”.  Sure, I understand that packaging sells products.  In the absence of being able to smell or test a product, the potential customer relies on visual appeal to select a product.  I get it, but can’t we develop packaging that provides a snugger fit for the product it contains while creatively developing a new vehicle to market the product?

Throwing Away Money

It occurs everywhere.  Next time you’re at a store take a moment to scrutinize all of the excessive packaging.  Here’s another example to support my point – pain relievers: Motrin, Aleve, Tylenol, etc.  The pills come in a bottle that is typically 30-50% larger than that needed to hold the pills.  So what do the manufacturers do – stuff the void space with cotton.  The bottle is then placed in a display box that most consumers discard as soon as the bottle is removed.  So now they’ve used 30-50% more plastic than needed, cotton, and chipboard, all of which will probably go straight to the local landfill, seeing that our country hasn’t fully embraced recycling.  Don’t even let me go there! What a waste of money and materials!

My wife received a package at her work the other day.  Someone had ordered coffee cups and they were shipped in a box that was easily 10 times bigger than needed.  So to fill up the void space, the box was filled with brown paper dunnage.   The kicker is the order was shipped in four separate boxes, each containing a stack of 100 cups. Can a company really afford to throw away money like this, especially in this economy?

Tell me these few examples couldn’t be the source of huge cost savings opportunities that could ultimately be passed along to the consumer.  I’m sure if you pay attention you’ll come across hundreds of similar opportunities every day. 

This brings up another great lesson to all those companies out there selling and shipping goods.  Do you know what else sways consumers to purchasing your products besides packaging?  COST!