A few minutes = more product, for less money with less packaging

One of my pet peeves is excess packaging. As you’ve tried to get the excess packaging off of your new purchase, have you ever wondered why there’s so much of it?

Part of the reason is that marketing executives believe that if an item is in a larger package it will stand out better against  other products and that we, the consumer, will feel that the item is of higher value.

So when I’m shopping I try to avoid buying items that have excess packaging. The interesting thing is that often, there are comparable items with less packaging at a better price.

For example, recently when purchasing an over the counter allergy medicine I took an extra few minutes to do some price-comparison:

One package was priced around $2 but on closer look it only offered five tablets – the box it came in was small, but way bigger than needed for 5 tablets – the size was supposedly justified by the individual wrapping (blister pack).

For about $4 there was a similar box that offered about 12 tablets.

For about $7 there was a small box with a little jar inside  that offered 60 tablets.

Now this would have been even better, if the jar was just wrapped and not in a box, but still a few minutes of comparison between the lowest priced item (which is what many people will grab without thinking) and the $7 item got me 12 times the product for less than 4 times the price (and without all the little blister packs)