2. Shipping Boxes: Too Much Tape, Break Away Tabs And Stretchy Envelopes

We've all received shipments in boxes sealed with enough tape to cross the USA at least once. Shippers worry about ever present thieves and shippers who, just for fun, might throw their stuff around while loading and unloading it. Since no one has designed anything better than the cardboard shipping box, vendors, who do take advantage of improved internal cushioning technologies, attempt to cocoon shipping boxes in miles of tape. And what is the result? It takes a little longer for thieves to get into a box. Shippers are still easily able to crush boxes and their contents. Those of us who receive the boxes have to carefully cut away all the tape to get to the small or large treasures inside.

But, let us honor those who try to make our lives a bit easier by making their shipping boxes easy to open or at least apparently easy to open.

If you buy small stuff on the Internet, you're probably familiar with the FedEx Express Box. See the picture below.

This is a seemingly innocent FedEx Express Small Box. Express boxes come in other, larger sizes too. The good news for shippers is that if you can stuff something into one of the boxes you'll pay less to ship it than if you use your own packaging. This box held a small and unique 2 GB USB flash memory card I'll talk about in a bit. The bad news here is that all FedEx Express boxes are designed the same way; essentially to turn you into a raving, sore fingered maniac in less than a minute. See the picture below.

All FedEx Express boxes have these little cardboard tabs that promise to provide an easy-open flap when you pull them toward the center. As you can see in the picture the tabs have this annoying tendency to tear off long before the flap is created.

Frankly, I can't remember the last time I was able to open a FedEx Express box using the tabs. No, to open one of these things I have to get really angry (easy with the no-work pull tabs), turn into the Hulk and rip the box open by prying up one of the tightly sealed flaps that the vendor uses when turning the box from a flatsy into a 3D object capable of imprisoning, often against its will, a poor little inanimate object. See the picture below.

Even as the Hulk ripping open a FedEx Express Box like this can hurt your fingers.

And, how about those FedEx cushioned stretchy plastic envelopes? Yipes! The sender seals the envelope and then it's your turn to try to find a couple of places where you can hold on, pull and break into the envelope to get to the little treasure inside. And, when you do find the required finger holds and start to pull, instead of yielding to your heroic efforts, the fool envelope just stretches. FedEx is certainly the winner of the you-ain't-gonna-open-our-packages-with-your-fingers-award.

Now, just so you don't go away thinking that all boxes with opening tabs are crap, take a look at the photo below. As you can see Amazon has mastered the art of the tab-opening box. The secret is that white plastic strip on the back of the pull tab. It runs all the way from the pull tab to the end of the pull strip, reinforcing the strip.

Update August 11, 2006: A number of you told me that FedEx Express boxes have white plastic strips just like ones on Amazon boxes. So why do I have so much trouble with FedEx boxes? I grab the pull tab and yank. I need to pull the tab up gently and hold the entire tab tightly with my fingers. Then the white plastic strip helps tear the box open. I found that out this morning when I tried to open the UPS version of the FedEx Express Box. Regarding stretchy plastic shipping envelopes, some tell me these envelopes have embedded strings for opening them. This week I got a couple of envelopes from FedEx and UPS and for my life I was unable to find opening strings on them. Maybe I get stuff from vendors who don't use those kinds of plastic envelopes.