I am a "beauty expert" who likes to buy perfumes from the Internet. She recently received a perfume gift box from a certain brand. When I opened the shoebox-sized courier box, I saw a portable paper bag. I took out the cardboard box from the paper bag and opened it. Inside was a dustproof cloth bag of the same size. There were several three-finger-wide small paper boxes wrapped in the bag. , tear off the plastic film, open the carton, and see the perfume itself. "The outer packaging of most beauty products is the same as this perfume box, with three layers inside and three layers outside." Xiao Wang said.

Nothing is unique. In 2020, the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation conducted a random inspection of the packaging of goods on the e-commerce platform and found that 12 of the 50 batches of goods were suspected of being over-packaged, and the unqualified rate of cosmetic packaging was as high as 70%.

Xiao Liu from Suzhou, Jiangsu Province has the habit of eating Youth League balls every spring. During the purchasing process, Xiao Liu was dazzled by the various "Youth League gift boxes". "There are many 'Qingtuan gift boxes' that are much more expensive than bulk Qingtuan, but taste average, and it is time-consuming and laborious to sort them out," said Xiao Liu.

“The cosmetics and food industries are the ‘hardest hit areas’ for excessive packaging.” Liu Jianguo, a professor at the School of Environment at Tsinghua University, said in an interview with this reporter. Food consumption is closely related to people's lives. The consumption is large and there is a need for separate packaging, which gives businesses an opportunity to over-package. Through multi-layer packaging, cosmetics can increase added value, cater to the needs of some consumers, stimulate sales, and increase profits. Reporters found on the "Little Red Book" platform that many netizens commented on some beautifully packaged cosmetics as "careful and exquisite" and "full of a sense of ritual."

Businesses increase profits through excessive packaging, and some consumers gain a sense of ritual by purchasing over-packaged products. It seems that "one is willing to fight, and the other is willing to suffer", but it is the rights and interests of consumers that are harmed.

On the one hand, consumers must pay for the "ceremonial sense" brought about by excessive packaging. Cao Mingde, a professor at the School of Civil and Commercial Economics at the China University of Political Science and Law and vice president of the Environmental Resources Law Research Society of the China Law Society, told this reporter that for most consumers, they throw away the packaging box after opening it, and only the product has use value. But in reality, the cost of packaging is included in the price of the product and is ultimately passed on to consumers. The more bloated the product packaging, the more consumers will spend but not get more use value.

On the other hand, consumers tend to buy what they have when purchasing goods. If all merchants aim to increase profits, the trend of excessive packaging will become more and more intense, and over time, only products will be seen on the shelves. Consumers are forced to accept over-packaged products and pay for the excessive packaging. "Therefore, there is an urgent need to regulate excessive packaging on the supply side." Cao Mingde said.