So Sam’s Club is now selling milk and orange juice in these new squarish Frankensteinian bottles. The problem is these new containers don’t have any spouts, so spills are almost inevitable. The reason behind this new packaging makeover is green. Green as in cash and green as in eco-friendly. Supposedly, these square containers are easier and quicker to ship. The result is less fuel, less money, less carbon footprint. Unfortunately, this is isn’t form follows function. It’s more like form follows shipment.
There’s still the fundamental usability problem of spilled milk and orange juice. The invention of spouts go back hundreds may be even thousands of years. I mean half of the Greek statues I studied in Art History was of a naked person pouring wine from pitchers. And yes, these pitchers all had spouts on them. Last I heard, Sam’s Club is launching a marketing campaign to teach consumers to tilt the bottle and not pour it. Tell this to a six year old kid who wants milk and cookies and their moms who have to clean up after them. I think the money that Sam’s Club saved on shipping these new bottles will go to a marketing and user adoption campaign, at least initially. It remains to be seen if you can teach an old dog new tricks. May be the dog has no choice if the choice is green and the company is Sam’s Club who’s also part of Walmart’s evil empire. That’s the inconvenient truth.
Patrick Neeman is Director of User Experience at Jobvite, a social recruiting platform and runs both the UX Drinking Game and Startup Drinking Game | More | Contact