What’s in the Box?
Random thoughts on packaging

By Sherri Collins

Editor, Pet Product News International

I like opening boxes, which is a good thing, considering the number of packages we’ve recently received here at Pet Product New International’s editorial offices for the 2009 Editors’ Choice Awards. Every year we put out the call to manufacturers to send us their latest and greatest new products for evaluation. And every year, they respond with a plethora of goods encased in shipping boxes and crates of all shapes and sizes.

In the course of extracting the products from first their shipping containers and then their packaging, several “issues” arose while anxiously awaiting the discovery of “what’s in the box.”

• People like tape—a lot. I thought my mother was the empress of tape, but I stand corrected. We received myriad boxes sealed with what had to be a dozen rolls of packing tape. In several instances, by the time we got into the box, we were too frustrated (and tired) to go any further…at least for the moment
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• Clamshell packaging must be banned, forever. Several products were imprisoned—that’s the only word for it--inside plastic clamshells that were impossible to open quickly and safely. A few in particular made it extra difficult since the product-identifying inserts doubled as the items’ instructions. It was incredibly frustrating to get the product out of the pack without cutting or tearing them; that and I nearly sliced my hand open as I fought my way inside. Easier-to-open clamshell-type packaging is now available and, hopefully, the old hand-eating kind will soon go the way of the eight-track tape.
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• Packaging information should reflect packaging content. A few of the products (and they’re accompanying press releases) announced the product was “redesigned,” “reformatted” or “newly created” for a particular species of pet. Great, I thought, until I got to the actual products. The packaging said “this animal” but the product labels said “that animal,” as did the instructions. It wasn’t really new, just repackaged. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate new packaging too, but it is disappointing to think a product has been specifically changed for your pet (insert favorite animal here), only to find it hasn’t. When a manufacturer is repurposing content for alternative animals, it needs to ensure that all the packaging, labels and instructions reflect that change. It’s more than likely the product is perfectly geared for said animal, but consumers (of which I’m one) want to know the product really is meant for their pets. Cross-purposed labels don’t support that desire.

The editorial staff will be completing its Editors’ Choice determinations in the next few weeks. We’ll tell you all about the winners—and why they won—in the upcoming August 2009 issue.

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What’s in the Box?
Random thoughts on packaging

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