Great gift, lousy package

Why are manufacturers working so hard to keep you from your presents? 

Whether you’ve been shopping for a digital camera, cordless phone, makeup, or video game system –- particularly at electronics stores and warehouse clubs -- chances are that you’ve walked out with stuff held prisoner in hard-plastic shrouds. Anyone who’s ever tried to open these impenetrable packages knows why they’ve been dubbed “clamshells.” The name fits. It takes an arsenal -- box cutters, hacksaws, screwdrivers, and pliers -- to slice, rip, and pry them apart. 

On Friday, Good Morning America aired a segment about “Wrap Rage,” which focused on consumer angst over stubborn product packaging. In the studio, hosts Robin Roberts and Diane Sawyer wrestled feebly with several clamshells, proving that even TV news anchors are no match for hermetically sealed plastic. 

Having written Consumer Reports’ March 2006 story on The Oyster Awards, our picks for America’s hardest-to-open packages, GMA came to our Yonkers, N.Y. headquarters to get my take on the problem. 

The timing couldn’t have been better. We’re readying for round two of The Oyster Awards (the winners, or should I say, losers, will be announced in the upcoming March issue), and soliciting comments from our visitors to tell us about their nominees for the worst packaging examples. 

Frustration may be the least of your worries when confronted by problem packaging. We’ve heard about bloodied fingers, hands, and arms. Those wounds didn’t necessarily come from the implements used to crack the clamshells, but from the plastic itself, which can be quite sharp after it has been sliced open. 

While clamshells are unquestionably public enemy number one, toy packaging can be pretty bad, too, especially for dolls, action figures, and other playthings with lots of small parts. Unwrapping American Idol Barbie last year was a 15-minute ordeal, untwisting wires, snapping rubber bands, stripping tape, slicing thick plastic manacles off her arms and torso, cutting off a tab embedded in her head, and carefully ripping stitches securing her tresses to a plastic strip on the back of the box. Most of the job had to be done carefully by hand, with help from a single-edge razor blade. And poor Barbie, we confess, lost a few hairs in the liberation process. 

Alas, packaging wasn’t always so challenging. Here’s why you may end up losing your cool on Christmas morning: 

• Simple economics. Once upon a time, cardboard was cheaper than plastic, so toys and most other goods were stuffed into boxes; small parts were stowed in soft bags. Now, it’s the other way around and plastic is more economical. Once plastic prices dropped, manufacturers were able to wrap goods in new ways. But many of those options proved harder to open than the cardboard box. 

• Theft has become a key concern. Shoplifting losses at retail stores are estimated at $15 billion, leading to electronic tags and oversized, sealed packaging -– like clamshells –- even for tiny items, so they can’t be pilfered. 

• More products are made overseas. Products sold in the U.S. were once largely made domestically, but many are now made abroad and must withstand a lengthy sea voyage in a cargo-ship container. Rigid plastic packages excel at keeping everything in place, so damage is less likely. 

• Clamshells are easy to display. Warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam’s are largely responsible for the proliferation of clamshell packaging not just to discourage shoplifters but because they fit neatly into slots in large shipping crates and use space efficiently. At the clubs, the crates are offloaded from trucks, transported by forklift onto the sales floor, and cut open. The crate, in effect, is the display. That helps keep down costs. 

• The desire to try before you buy. Children are encouraged to touch and interact with toys before buying them. This has given birth to products like our American Idol Barbie –- a doll with shackled accessories. They are easy to see and touch, but difficult to steal. 

• What’s on the horizon. We have noticed gradual improvements in some toy packaging, and even a few clamshells that feature innovative backings that don’t require sharp objects or brute force to open. We’ll be covering those improvements in our Oyster Awards report in March. For now, we recommend you free that toy or MP3 player before you give it to a child for the holidays. That way, you’ll avoid frustrating the kid, if not yourself.

Comments

[Joe Ekaitis]

At the other end is nearly non-existent packaging as on the Master Combination Lock Security Cable with Resettable Combination.

The blister pack made from that transparent plastic notorious for nasty gashes and lacerations protects the cable but leaves the combination lock fully exposed so you can feel how smoothly the tumblers turn. Nice idea but in an effort to save a millionth of an American cent per unit, the instructions for changing the combination aren't tucked away in a folded piece of paper. They're in plain view on the back of the blister pack.

Result: EVERY one of them on the peg at a local Target store was rendered useless because some dolt changed the combinations.