Survey: 60 percent of respondents reject luxurious packaging

Sixty-four percent of consumers said that they are unwilling to pay for luxurious packaging for goods, however, due to “face,” nearly 30 percent would choose these kinds of products when buying gifts for others. The International Food Packaging Association released a report during a forum entitled “Refusing to pay for excessive packaging” organized by Green.sohu.com on the afternoon of July 17, exposing new problems due to excessive packaging including overweight packaging, imbalanced space ratios, and four or five different materials used in the same packaging.

Luxurious packaging is to save “face” when buying gifts

Conducted in early July, the survey shows that 99 percent of consumers believe they have paid for packaging while buying goods. As a result, 64 percent clearly said that they are “unwilling” to pay for packaging, and the product packaging should be simple, graceful and not exceed 10 percent of the product’s value. When making purchases for themselves, 93 percent said they would not choose fancy packaging and a majority opts for ordinary or simplified packaging.

However, the survey revealed a phenomenon that deserves attention. Asked whether they would buy products with fancy packaging as gifts, only 49 percent clearly said no, 24 percent said they were not sure, and 27 percent said yes. Environmental expert Dong Jinshi said that this reflects the psychology of saving “face”.

Packaging for a box of moon cakes costs 15 yuan

The International Food Packaging Association calculated the cost of excessive packaging in a gift box containing six moon cakes. It comes with a plastic cover that weighs 371 grams, six small carton boxes for each moon cake and a wooden base. The total cost of packaging was 15.41 yuan. However, six moon cakes retail at less than 50 yuan, which means that packaging accounted for 35 percent of the total.

Ninety-six percent are aware that luxurious packaging causes pollution and is a waste of resources. Three major methods to deal with gift boxes include keeping the packaging for another use, selling them to waste product collectors or throwing them away. If some retail outlets and supermarkets set up recycling points with incentives, 43 percent said they would consider bringing the packaging back for recycling.

Expert’s Opinion

Packaging should use single material

Environmental expert Dong said that at present there are fewer cases of bundle sales or packaging exceeding three layers. However, new problems have emerged. First of all, products have an imbalanced space ratio, with some reaching as high as 80 percent. Consumers actually spend money on packaging and air, and transport and storage consumes a great amount of resources, with the cost eventually passing on to consumers.

Meanwhile, packaging materials are excessively heavy with some even weighing twice to three times as much as the products themselves. Some packaging is composed of up to four or five materials, which make it difficult to recycle. Dong suggested that the “regulation for restricting excessive product packaging,” which will be introduced soon, clearly specifies packaging materials for different products. Packaging should use single materials or those easy to separate. Light packaging should be adopted, and materials that are heavy or expensive, such as metal, wood, crystal and glass should be avoided.

Translated by LOTO