Americans were ready for change. By golly, they are going to get that badly-needed change. The following is the text of a letter from the founder and CEO of retailing giant Amazon.com

Dear Customers,

Wrap rage describes the frustration we humans feel when trying to free a product from a nearly impenetrable package.

Some products are hermetically sealed inside plastic clamshell cases, while others (especially toys) use plastic-coated steel-wire ties. Without the right tools, wire ties can be painful and time-consuming to untwist.

Today, we are excited to announce the beginning of a multi-year initiative designed to alleviate wrap rage - Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging. Amazon is working with leading manufacturers to deliver products inside smaller, easy-to-open, recyclable cardboard boxes with less packaging material (and no frustrating plastic clamshells or wire ties).

One of the first products to launch with Frustration-Free Packaging is the Fisher-Price Imaginext Adventures Pirate Ship, which is now delivered in an easy-to-open, recyclable cardboard box. The new packaging eliminates:

• 36 inches of plastic-coated steel-wire ties
• 1,576.5 square inches of printed corrugated package inserts
• 36.1 square inches of folding carton materials
• 175.25 square inches of PVC blisters 3.5 square inches of ABS molded styrene
• Two molded plastic fasteners.
  

We've launched Frustration-Free Packaging with 19 best-selling items from Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft, and electronics manufacturer Transcend.

It will take many years, but our vision is to offer our entire catalog of products in Frustration-Free Packaging. We offer our sincere thanks to these companies for working with us in this effort - we truly appreciate it. In addition to making packages easier to open, a major goal of the Frustration-Free Packaging initiative is to be more environmentally friendly by using less packaging material. We've also launched a number of projects across the company to reduce waste and save energy."

Sincerely,
Jeff Bezos
Founder and CEO Amazon.com

Labels: amazon, frustration, packaging, rage