Building a "new and improved" mousetrap

I hate the packaging for electronics that is hard sealed plastic. You need industrial scissors to get it open and sometimes the cut edges are sharp and can cut you.

I hate toy packaging where they twisty tie the thing in 500 different places to a piece of cardboard. There is just no easy way to get the toy out. You have to sit there and untwist for 15 minutes and the kid is there about to have a fit because it takes so long.

Those are both excellent examples, FreeDuck. I couldn't agree more.

Those electronics things are nuts - especially when you buy them at Cosco and they come in the billboard size plastic casing.

I can understand theft is an issue and that is what the packaging attempts to stop but wouldn't it be nice if they could pop out your purchase before you leave the store like they do with the clothing theft tags?

I hate CD packaging too. All that impossible tape protected by the shrink wrap.

All this over-packaging has to add to the cost of the item.

I find a hack saw handy for that heavy plastic packaging...

boomerang...years ago I heard Jerome Gould speak. He is the guru of packaging design...invented the Pepsi logo, the old NASA "worm" logo, etc., etc., etc. I remember several things he said that made a huge impression on me when I was in advertising.

He said the traditional way of bottling olives was the worst packaging in the entire world. They take little round objects, put them in oily water so they are extra slippery, then stack them (getting the fewest possible in the container) in a tall, narrow cylindrical glass jar (easily breakable when handled with wet, oily fingers) with an opening too small to accommodate a spoon, fork or fingers. No wonder people only eat a couple at a time. It's too damn hard to get ahold of the little buggers!

Gould was hired in the 70s by the Spanish government to redesign olive packaging to (hopefully) increase consumption. He wondered if it was even possible to get Spaniards to eat MORE olives than they already did. But he put them into a short, round plastic tub with a wide opening (similar to small margarine tubs used now) that could double as a serving bowl on the table. You could easily spoon out as many as you wanted. It increased consumption by 18% the first year. I've wondered if they're still using his design.

Trader Joe's sells 'em that way. Some of them anyway.

Good point, interesting to think about it.

He also said that walking down the laundry detergent aisle in a typical supermarket gave him motion sickness....all those swirling, neon colors made him nauseous.

He's also the one responsible for packaging motor oil in square plastic bottles with twist-off caps instead of the traditional round metal cans that required a tool to open. (Square packaging is a more economical use of space and allows more product to be shipped & displayed in the same amount of shelf space.)

Very interesting, Eva!

I've noticed that a lot more stuff is being sold in square containers these days but I had no idea why.

Ain't it the truth about olives! Most of them now come in wide mouth jars but the ones I like still come in a tiny little skinny jar - I have to jab them out with a bbq skewer.

Those stories remind me of Paco Underhill's studies on retail space. He calls himself a "retail anthropologist" and studies how people shop. I notice a lot of his ideas in action whenever I visit stores these days. His book "Why We Buy" really changed a lot of things I do even in my non-retail business.

One recent packaging innovation that I really like is the pop-top on canned goods. I'm sure it was done in response to the Y2K panic since the cans started appearing around that time.

Some of the packaging that appeals to me most is for products that I by the least - beauty items. The salon where I get my hair cut sells a huge list of high end items and I could browse around in there all day. Makeup counters give me the creeps but I really like to look at all the little tubes and pots and dodads. Those companies must sink a ton of money into package design.

I once bought a large round bottle of olives at Costco, not least because I liked the big round glass jar, and it was, as I remember, about eight dollars for zillions of olives. I couldn't open it. Had to take it back to Costco. The fellow at the desk couldn't open it. Went in back somewhere, came back with jar opened.

osso, let hot water run on the jar and it will open quite easily.
I buy olives fresh at the farmers market in a wide jar.

Packaging can be a nuisance though - Barbie doll packaging
is the nuts. Vitamin bottles as well, and OTC cold remedies especially when they're in these blister packaging.

In some european countries you have at every store this
huge recycling bins where you can leave your packaging
material after you've finished shopping.

No, not that jar.
I can usually open a jar by breaking the vacuum by tapping on the middle of the cap. Hot water. A piece of rubber (rubber tourniquets used to be good for that in the lab). Whatever. Not that jar. As far as wide, the cap was about six inches in diameter. It was a memorable jar of olives.

The whole point is, you shouldn't HAVE TO work that hard to open a package.

I hate toys that come in hard plastic with tie-wraps and screws to hold the product down inside the package. But I think that inaccessibility may have more to do with preventing shoplifting.

Cosmetics are frequently cited as having the most elaborate packaging for the smallest contents. Yes, those companies DO spend a fortune on it because the packaging sells the product. Remember Charles Revson's (founder of Revlon) famous quote, "In the factories we make cosmetics, but in the stores we sell hope." (Not the exact wording, but close.)

Yes indeed they do sell hope!

At a terribly inflated price.

In my newspaper the other day they reviewed a wine that comes in a box and I started thinking that those bags inside the box would be a very cool way for someone to package Gatorade or other "energy" drink.

Pre-Mo we used to do a lot of hiking, we still do a lot of camping. To be able to carry a good amount of liquid in a collapasable bag would be really nifty - very little and very compactable trash to cart to the next trash bin plus the squishablitly factor of the bag itself would help it fit into backpacks easily.

Someone could make some money selling that to hikers.........

Maybe I'll send the idea off to the sports drink companies and see what happens.....

Very good idea!

I thought this was a great idea when I was last in Germany a coupla decades ago.