Clamshell packaging sucks.
Whenever we get a product packaged in a clamshell, LWC gives it to me. Then I attack it with a box cutter, cutting around the outside edge. Sometimes it's really tough to get into. This article discusses why it's made that way.
Retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and the like who sell these small electronic toys and gadgets demand that they be put in packaging that's next to impossible to steal from. But they could make it easier to open it when you get it home.It doesn't have to be that way. Monster Cable makes clamshells that have rivets that pop open so you don't have to slice your hand to get to the product.
6 comments:
They have your money at that point, so they don't give a rat's ass about your hand. Big corporations have no incentive whatsoever to care about what's good for the consumer unless it affects sales.
Therefore, I buy as few things in that shitty packaging as I can. When there is a choice between two or more products and you can choose a non-clamshell, always go that way. The only way to vote on this one is with your feet.
I almost left Tide-To-Go pens on the shelf a week or two ago even though another mother told me it would get the sweet potato stains out of B's bibs because it looked clamshelly, but I changed my mind when I turned the package over and there was an easy to get to perforation that I could use once I got the product home. The ironic part is that I cut the package open anyway because the scissors were right there, but at least I had the option not to risk putting my eye out or losing a finger just to get out some sweet potato stains.
We're not the only consumers upset about this packaging. There are possible lawsuits although data about hand injuries are hard to collect. Emergency rooms report increased injuries after Christmas, for example.
I agree with the foot voting, but it's hard when megaliths like Sprawl*Mart tell the manufacturers you MUST use the clamshell. This even affects your purchases if you don't shop there.
I can tell you from experience that if the retail chains mandate motion-sensor explosive packaging, manufacturers will do whatever they have to do.
Well, there comes a line where retailers have to protect themselves before they serve the customers. It's a pretty sad state of the times, but it's true.
As much as I hate the packaging, I've never disliked enough to really worry too much about it. Scissors generally do the job pretty well, and I never care about the stupid little cardboard card.
But with electronics getting much smaller, retailers have to be much more wary of this sort of thing.
Clamshell packaging is one of my biggest peeves. (I won't dignify it with the term 'pet' peeve, either.) I can maybe understand it for tiny, expensive electronic items, but most of the stuff that's packaged that way doesn't have that excuse.
And as far as the electonic items go, if theft is an issue, I'd rather they were kept in a locked glass case and they made you ask for them at the counter. I've seen K-Mart do that with new-release DVDs, and there's no reason Wal-Mart can't do it too. Yeah, it's a nuisance, but not half as much a nuisance as a package that takes a chain saw and an axe to open.
Sprawl*Mart (I got that from the Simpsons and I love it) wants the manufacturers to supply their own SHELVES. Take a look at the huge cardboard boxes they just dump off the pallets in their stores. (Or don't... if you don't go there, that's okay with me.) Anyway, they don't wanna do any work, so I'm sure their package requirements are suitably designed.
They do it so they can sell you a $9.99-but-wait-there's-more special opening gizmo. You'll buy it because you're desparate to get into the bloody clamshell and then discover that it doesn't work (and neither will the other one that came free with it).
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