Question Why is the Amazon packaging for Graco and Harmony different?

I'd like to start off saying that I work manual labor in an Amazon Fullfillment Facility, aka the shipping warehouse for Amazon in Kent, Washington. We load packages onto palates for USPS to deliver to people's homes. We get a lot of Graco, Cosco, Britax, DIONO **i have yet to spot boxes for the Solana, Monterey, Cambria, Olympia, and Little Tikes models** and Evenflo items, especially car seats, like the Graco Affix and Turbo Boosters are most common, followed by the Nautilus, Evenflo Big Kid, and Britax Marathon CT. Tonight I saw a Harmony Defender box for the first time.

My question is this: why do the Nautilus car seats get packaged in YELLOW/GRAY boxes instead of the photo/marketing/retail box, same for the Turbo and occasional Snugride seats and the Affix?
I also saw the print on the Defender box was only all black-and-white print, is that a warehouse package style thing or is it more common? Same goes for BOB Jogger strollers in brown cardboard narrow boxes, and Cosco budget car seats (not my fave due to lack of padding and room for growth) in narrow blue/white boxes.There's really no other place to post this question on the Internet, I've tried googling the terms but can't find a sufficient answer. **side note: Evenflo and Britax boxes are the same as they are at Target, which makes me ponder this conundrum even more**
I hope I get a reply, I'm constantly finding myself in an overanalyzing of car seats rut at my job, and I NEED TO KNOW WHY the boxes are so different!

I'd say you might be in the best position to answer this one, maybe check the Amazon site to see if any of those products are labeled frustration free? Or are just cheaper to box up that way specifically for Amazon. Retailers have huge influence on packaging styles, eg, Walmart sells coscos in plastic bags because you can get two in a box that way and more on the shelf.
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I imagine companies sell a lot of car seats through Amazon, and likely have different packaging for items that go straight to an Amazon warehouse. If a box isn't going to be displayed on a shelf for customers to see, why spend extra money on full-color designs?

As for the ones that are the same as brick-and-mortar stores, maybe it's easier for them to have all one box than change it up.

I think a lot of companies package thing differently for Amazon. I love their frustration free packaging.

Though, super funny- we ordered a snap circuit set in frustration free packaging. I opened the shipping box, and the brown box inside said snap circuit set. I wrapped it up and when ds opened it, inside the brown box was a retail packaged set! It was awesome.


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I'm going to guess that some companies offer their retailers a choice of boxes - less expensive plain boxes or more expensive boxes designed for an eye-catching display, and other companies just use one box for everything.

That is only a barely educated guess though.

I may also be that you cannot tell what is in the box from the street. So when USPS, UPS, or FedEx deliver and no one is home all you see from the street is a plain box.

I'm a graphic designer so I'm going to be a little nerdy.

The short answer is "because it's cheaper", as others have brought up. Amazon is a bit unique in that the packaging doesn't have to sell the product like it does at Target, for example. So, the box can be more basic because its website listing is doing the selling.

The longer answer is that cardboard can be printed directly or have a printed litho label applied. A litho label is basically printed paper glued to the cardboard and is more expensive, but has a lovely finish and is excellent for photography or full color printing. Graco uses litho labels for their retail packaging, whereas Cosco direct prints. Litho labels are also more expensive to design because they require photographers, models, production artists, a graphic designer, and typically four color printing, possibly up to six colors if the company wants to use their Pantone colors for their logo. Cardboard I assume has to go through an offset press (they may have gone digital) which means that every color used has to be manually prepared and is applied in progressive steps. This is a lot of labor and uses very, very large and expensive machinery.

Direct printed cardboard will use text and illustrations, and often only one or two colors because cardboard is such a crude medium. However, this cheap method only requires a graphic designer. Two colors are cheaper to print than four (or even six), which is why you see direct printed boxes often printed in the company's two Panton colors (look at the user manuals here too!). Some companies spring for white cardboard, which has an added cost, while some stick with the cheap brown kraft finish.

The cheapest box you'll ever find is brown craft with one color printing, and only text

/nerd
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I'm glad those ugly Evenflo boxes are keeping costs down, as well as their proclaimed mission of saving the environment, then (brown box, green ink). Now that we store all our products in the back, I wonder if BRU will stop having such pretty boxes, too...hmm...