Everyone has had the classic clamshell nightmare: dealing with plastic tough enough to cause injury after you manage to break into it. Or how about an impenetrable delivery box with rip-stop tape sealing all the seams so that you wonder what might be trying to escape? We reach for screwdrivers, knives, scissors, ballpoint pens, wine bottle corkscrews or any number of sharp-pointed tools in order to wrangle our way into a package. These experiences don’t end well, far too often causing massive frustration and self-inflicted injuries. And even more annoyance lies in wait when we find packing peanuts or an octopus of air pillows within a difficult-to-open box.
When packaging is hard to get into, consumers transfer that negative experience directly to the product inside.