Consumers frustrated by hard to open packaging
New Which? research has revealed that two thirds (67%) of people get frustrated trying to get into everyday products and four in 10 (40%) have hurt themselves while trying to open packaging in the last two years.
We surveyed more than 2000 people and found:
• A quarter (24%) regularly need help to open packaging and one in five (19%) say, when they’re out shopping, their food choices are limited by complicated packaging.
• Consumers used a range of implements to open packaging, from scissors (89%), knives (66%), Stanley knives (8%) and screwdrivers (6%). Some people even used razor blades (4%) and hammers (2%) to get to their goods.
• Tin cans were the biggest cause of package related injuries with an estimated more than one million people UK-wide going to their GP or A&E in the last two years as a result of opening a tin.
• Moulded plastic is the biggest bugbear for consumers, with more than half (54%) finding the packaging irritating.
Which? editor, Richard Headland, said:
“With one in four people telling us they regularly need help to open everyday products, bad packaging is not only frustrating but is causing injuries too. We want manufacturers to improve the design of product packaging and make opening instructions much clearer.”
Notes to editors
1. We surveyed 2003 members of the UK public from 9th to 13th May 2013.
2. Our panel examined more than 200 items, chosen from more than 2000 nominations, to assess the ease of getting in to the product, their findings can be found in the PDF of the article here.