Excessive usage of packing material (bubble wrap, etc) in american goods?

Factual Questions
1

Ok, as a background:
I live in Sweden. I work with computers, I install servers, and make sure everything works in our computer rooms (making sure there is enough electricity for the servers, that there is sufficient cooling for the racks, etc…)
Needless to say, most of what we install are american machines, and this is where I detected a significant difference between American products and products made in other countries.

Let me give you an example: We order a server, with a couple extra power cords on the side. The server is deliverd in a cardboard box, with some of that (usually)white stuff they put in to protect it from bumps (don’t know the english word for it?). That’s fine with me, no problem. The thing is the powercords, (that arent really easily broken!) are delivered in a big box, inside which there are two smaller boxes. Inside those boxes are the cords, stuffed fairly tightly in bubble wrap, and I believe they even put the cords in anti-static bags! “Somewhat” excessive IMO!

This is just an example mind you, this kind of shipments we get all the time.

So, I was thinking why this was, and came up with the theory that in America this is a sign of quality, that the company (HP, in this case!) makes sure that the goods are delivered intact, no matter the cost.
To me though, it just seems stupid. It serves no purpose, it’s a terrible waste of natural resources, and it must cost at least a little bit of extra money to pack things like that.

So, I’d like to get the opinions of my fellow dopers here. Especially the american ones.
Would you say that this kind of behaviour is usually seen as a sign of high quality of the goods in US?
If so, would you agree?
Do americans (corporations as well as the average guy) often think about the environmental aspects of how they use resources?

Thanks for your time. :slight_smile:

sits and waits for responses

2

I agree with you 100%–commercial items here are ofte riduclously packed. It’s really a shame when you have to unwrap and open a box to get to a tube of toothpaste. I think it also has to do with America’s lawsuit-happy culture. You have to make sure a power cord doesn’t cut through the box and injure someone who will then get a million dollars for pain and suffering.

3

Some packaging is designed to reduce theft. Small, expensive items often are packaged in large containers, otherwise it is too easy to just hide it and walk out without paying. OTOH, small, important items can get lost so to play it safe they are packaged in a bulky way so you cannot but help find them when you open the big boxes with all the parts.

4

Yeah, I’ve gotten some pretty ridiculous boxes in the mail recently. I ordered this little Serenity ornament, about five inches in length. The retail box in comes in is about 10x6x4 inches, which seems reasonable. However, that came in a box that was something like 24x18x12 inches. The package was something liek twenty times bigger than the actual product. For anything besides, oh, jet engine parts, that’s excessive.

5

I don’t think this is seen as the mark of high quality. I think for the most part it is seen as a stupid. While Duckster’s point about loss prevention has some merit in the retail world, that doesn’t really apply in the case you mentioned. In some cases the size of the shipping box may be dictated by the size of the boxes the company has on hand. It may be more cost effective for them to waste a couple large boxes then add another box size to their packaging system. I have even heard of people receiving software licenses in computer sized boxes, although I can’t back that up with any cites.

6

In a lot of cases it’s all about display. The larger and more prominent your item, the more likely it is to be purchased.

Of course this theory doesn’t apply to servers ordered from a warehouse. US goods are shipped long distances in North America, and world wide. Companies employ package engineers who design and then perform drop testing and vibration testing to ensure the product survives the worst possible shipping conditions. So yes, it’s about quality.

7

But in the example I gave with the power cords there cant be a real quality-related reason for packing it like that? I mean, a power cord isn’t exactly easily broken even if you are deliberately TRYING to break it. As I said, with the servers, or any other delicate equipment, I have no objections, but at times it just gets silly IMO…

8

It’s entirely possible that HP’s supply depot had only two sizes of boxes - one big server-sized box, and one tiny box that’s only big enough for a couple CDs or a stick of RAM - if shipping parts is an uncommon occurrence for them. As for costing extra, well, maybe not, if you look at it from a standpoint of consistency with (probably) low-paid workers, and ensuring the (usually) expensive hardware arrives undamaged.

If the warehouse mantra is antistat bag it, bubble-wrap it and box it, antistat bag it, bubble-wrap it and box it, they don’t need to worry about someone making a judgement call and thinking a widget is durable enough to not need ESD protection or bubble-wrap, then having the thing arrive broken.

With regards to big = harder to steal, yes, that’s true. I don’t know how they are currently, but a few years ago, FedEx required anything that was insured for $1000 or more to be in a box at least 12" on a side.

Oh, the white stuff is expanded polystyrene foam. Styrofoam is the best-known brand name, and Dow Chemical has an uphill fight to keep that from becoming a generic name. I’m a bit amused to see that genuine Styrofoam is described as Blue in color, not white. Notice the capital-B Blue? That too, is a Dow trademark.

9

Rob Cockerham of cockeyed.com has a term for this: underpacking.

10

Full disclosure: I used to work at HP until I was laid off so they could save money by hiring people in India & Costa Rica at 1/4 of what I was paid. They had to hire 8 people to do my job, so I’m no exactly sure how that helped, but I’m sure someone got a promotion out of the whole deal. I’m no longer bitter.

The short answer for their often bizarre packaging: IBM did it first.

Anyway, a huge chunk of HP’s enterprise computing business comes from defense contractors, governments, and large banks. Each one of those groups has a huge bureaucracy surrounding purchasing, shipping & receiving. A lot of these requirements (binders and binders and binders - you don’t want to have to deal with that) were really just someone documenting the way something had been done once, probably by IBM, in 1960 for twenty minutes. Nothing can move or rattle, even if dropped from X feet. You can’t shake a box that needs to be shipped and hear anything coming from inside. Everything must have a part number, etc.

It’s cheaper in the long run to just use the most intensive customer requirements for everything than try to package things according to who they’re getting sent to.

One of my favorite examples of this is the q-tips that come with some toner cartridges for cleaning the corona wires. They’re individually bagged and have a part number sticker on each one. You can call them up and order replacement using that part number. It’ll cost $5 with $15 shipping, and they’ll probably laugh at you and tell you to go to the pharmacy and buy a 1000 pack for $1.50, but you could do it if you really wanted.

But HP is an extreme case. Most others (Dell, for example) don’t use nearly as much packaging (I’m looking at one right now, it’s mostly easily recycled cardboard with some black foam to support it). Apple is downright stingy on the packagaing, the boxes that the new iMacs come in are smaller than the boxes most other companies use to ship laptops.

11

Slight hijack…

Anybody tried to get kids toys out the packages lately? OMFG!

Bob the Builder toy (Lofty for Bob fans), kinda open sided display box. Cardboard tray inside with each wheel, yes all six of them, individually fastened to the tray with at least 6 inches of plastic coated wire each.

This seems to be the norm, i’ve had to untangle a dozen or more wire fixings to get toys out before. Really people, there has got to be an easier way!

Hijack over, apologies.