UKC

A while ago I bought a pair of scissors and was frustrated to find, in my hotel room with no sharp objects to hand, that I needed a pair of scissors to get into the packaging.

Yesterday I bought a screwdriver, securely attached to its packet with ... a screw.

Are packaging designers just having a laugh?

In reply to john arran:

Amazon offers "frustration free" packaging as a no-cost option. I wonder who chooses not to have it. It means an envelope instead of the heat sealed plastic.

In reply to john arran:

Why does a screwdriver or a pair of Scissors even need packaging? I wonder if everything has to be made postable now a days?
I do have some sympathy with producers, with everyone wanting perfection and extended supply chains, who would buy a pair of scissors with a tiny scratch or a cake with a tiny corner knocked off?

In reply to Philip:
Once broke a finger nail at an airport and as I can't stand jagged nails and still had two more flights to get to my destination, I reluctantly went into boots and bought a (ridiculously expensive) pair of flight approved nail clippers.

Eventually gave up on getting them out of the packet and waited till I got to my destination and could unpack my hold bag to use my leatherman to open the sodding packaging (which by this stage was reminiscent of the tin of pineapple in a certain JK Jerome novel).

Of course by now I had the very nice scissors on my leatherman to hand so the nail clippers were surplus to my requirements.

In reply to john arran:

There's a whole website I remember seeing (not going to Google it as it wasn't pleasant) dedicated to all the nasty injuries people suffer trying to get into modern plastic packaging. Some of the sliced fingers (from the cut plastic packaging usually, rather than the implement being used to get into it) were quite nasty.

In reply to john arran:
Costco package engineers seem to have a design rule that the strength of plastic packages should be inversely proportional to the square root of the mass of the packaged item.

20kg of water - super thin polythene
20 AA batteries - 5mm thick Starfleet spec. transparent aluminum.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:




Hulllooooo computer!
Keyboard. How quaint

In reply to yorkshireman:


I once got a paper cut trying to remove a Health & Safety products catalogue from its excessive wrapping......

In reply to john arran:

I ordered a pair of new bicycle tyres from an online retailer, once. They delivered them in a cardboard box that was in perfect condition upon arrival... and stuffed with bubble wrap... obviously to protect the bike tyres from knocks.

Also, Amazon's "frustration free" packaging is basically a myth. It is available for such a small number of products, I think I've had the option to select it a maximum of once. Ever. It's a good idea, though. I think a tonne of products could quite adequately be shipped in nondescript, plain and easy to open cardboard.

In reply to john arran:
The thought of them having a laugh is an appealing one...a screw holding a screw driver.