Study on the causes of the hottest over packaging

Research on the causes of excessive packaging

this paper analyzes the causes of excessive packaging from the surface and in-depth. Firstly, it analyzes the surface causes of excessive packaging from three aspects: the seller, the buyer and the society; Secondly, it analyzes the causes of excessive packaging from the perspective of market failure and government failure

excessive packaging is the embodiment of the imbalance between the value of packaging and the value of packaged products, which is caused by the overemphasis and blind pursuit of the added value of packaging and the halo effect it brings

first, the surface causes of excessive packaging

1. From the seller's point of view, driven by interests, merchants exaggerated the promotional role of packaging. Modern marketing has regarded packaging as an integral part of the overall product, and its specific functions mainly include the following aspects: first, the protection of goods, which is the basic function of packaging. Secondly, packaging can promote, guide and establish brand image for businesses and consumers, so as to guide and attract consumers to purchase. The following takes the health care products industry, which is the most flooded with excessive packaging, as an example to illustrate the causes of excessive packaging. Jilin Province in Northeast China is rich in ginseng. It participated in the Canton Fair more than a decade ago, and it was packed in 30kg. Later, it was changed to 5 kg small packaging, and the price per kg increased by 30%. Health care products merchants pay more and more attention to the outer packaging. With a red brocade rope tied around the waist of each ginseng and a brocade box for packaging, the price will be doubled; Slice the ginseng, stick it on a foam box, and open a transparent window; More enterprises grind ginseng into powder, put it into capsules, seal a few capsules on a plate, then put them into a small carton, then put several small cartons into a large brocade box, and finally put the large brocade box into a brocade bag. Only after that, the packaging is completed, the price naturally doubles, while the actual value of the goods obtained by consumers only accounts for a small part of the price, and the enterprise has made huge profits. Attracted by huge profits, more and more enterprises began to compete with each other in packaging and do surface work

2. From the perspective of the buyer, the sociality and irrationality of residents' consumption lead to excessive packaging

consumer behavior is social. When consumers buy goods, they not only look at the price, quality and function of products, but also pay attention to the packaging of goods intentionally or unintentionally. The key factor for consumers to choose the same goods is packaging. A beautifully designed package can meet the aesthetic needs of consumers, reflect the social class of consumers, and increase their sense of belonging to their class. If the goods purchased are gifts, packaging is more important. Qian Jin, vice president and Secretary General of China Packaging Technology Association, believes that "excessive packaging" has its specific social and psychological basis in China, and oriental culture pays more attention to the form of reciprocity than western culture. Expensive health care products need to have decent packaging to set off their nobility. It shows the style of gift giving, so the health care products with "empty stomach" luxury packaging are more marketable than those with simple packaging, so the gift market has become a "disaster area" with excessive packaging

3. From the perspective of society, relevant laws and regulations are not perfect and law enforcement is not enough

market economy is a credit economy based on credit. Excessive packaging is a dishonest behavior of enterprises. Under the temptation of economic interests, many enterprises choose over packaging. This dishonest behavior makes the dishonest quickly become a nouveau riche, and the result is that there are more and more over packaging phenomena in the society. If a society lacks the norms of the corresponding integrity legal system and the punishment mechanism for dishonesty, the dishonest will not be punished, but will obtain higher dishonesty benefits than fair benefits, which will inevitably lead to the proliferation of dishonesty, the deterioration of social credit, the chaos of market order and other serious consequences

Second, the underlying causes of excessive packaging

1. The market failure of packaging

the normally functioning market is usually an effective mechanism for the allocation of resources at different times and for different purposes. However, the normal operation of the market requires a number of conditions, including: all resources must enter the market, and their prices are determined by supply and demand; Perfect competition; Human behavior has no obvious external effects; The number of public products is not large; Short term behavior, uncertainty and irreversible decisions do not exist. If these conditions cannot be met, the market will not be able to allocate resources effectively, and the market will not be able to effectively adjust prices, resulting in market failure. On the issue of excessive packaging, according to the relevant cost and benefit theory in economics, I think there are the following situations:

(1) the concept of externality of packaging production was first put forward by Marshall. Externality refers to that when a consumption or production activity does not affect other consumption or production activities through market price, and this impact is not reflected through market price, externality will occur. It shows that private benefits and social benefits, private costs and social costs are inconsistent

external effects cause inconsistency between private costs and social costs, resulting in the actual price being different from the optimal price. External effects can be good or bad. An example of good external effects is that some products that pollute the environment objectively reduce the possibility of environmental pollution due to the existence of external packaging; However, the problem of excessive packaging brings more negative external effects. First, packaging consumes a lot of resources, and the production of packaging materials will also produce environmental pollution. Enterprise 4. Check the oil quality and maintain good industry. The pollution produced in production not only brings additional costs to the enterprise itself, but also meets the exciting force, frequency range Besides technical indicators such as load capacity, the environment around the enterprise is damaged, which brings more additional costs to the whole society; In addition, a large number of discarded packaging materials pollute the environment, but also increase the cost of social waste disposal. The problem of excessive packaging has increased the cost of the whole society, but the enterprises involved in packaging do not bear this cost, and they have no incentive to consider this cost. Reducing the use of packaging materials will bring benefits to the whole society, but why should enterprises do so? The competitive relationship between enterprises involved in packaging does not allow enterprises to bear this part of the cost alone. Only if all enterprises bear this cost, a single enterprise will not fail in the market competition

can the market mechanism naturally produce the above results? c. Select the fixture according to the customer's sample. The answer is No. Because the environmental cost is outside the market relationship and originates from the technical relationship. A basic assumption of an efficient market is that economic entities are interconnected through their influence on prices, and technical relations are excluded. In the development of China's packaging industry, due to the low cost of some packaging products that waste resources and pollute the environment, regardless of environmental costs, and have price advantages in market competition, flexible packaging manufacturers basically do not need them, while green packaging products generally have high prices and are at a disadvantage in market competition. Therefore, although green packaging has good prospects, it cannot occupy the mainstream of the market at this stage

(2) externality of packaging consumption

packaging consumption behavior also has externality problems. The positive externality of consumption refers to a characteristic that individual or collective consumption behavior is friendly to the environment and friendly to the environment. For example, people buy and consume products with appropriate packaging and green packaging, which will promote the protection of resources and the environment. The negative externality of consumption refers to the characteristics that individual or collective consumption behavior endangers the environment and others. Specifically, it damages the environment and consumes too much resources when consuming, using or disposing of products. White pollution and garbage besieging the city are all related to improper consumption. Consumption of products with excessive packaging, high product standards or short service life will cause a waste of resources

due to the incomplete reflection of consumption expenditure (cost), the negative externality of consumption will encourage the consumption of more goods, thus breeding and inducing many environmental and resource problems. Take the consumption of plastic bags as an example, the price of plastic packaging products generally does not include governance fees. Therefore, on the one hand, consumers use plastic bags and buy over packaged products, on the other hand, they refuse to buy products that record the real cost of packaging into the price. In fact, if we consider the buyer power of consumers and the pulling effect of consumption on production, the above externalities may be more serious. In terms of the external economy of the environment, if too little resources are invested, the output will be less and the price will be higher, while other enterprises (industries) will invest too much resources, and finally the whole economic system will deviate from the optimal allocation of resources or appear in a low efficiency state, which will also lead to the problem of "market failure" in the packaging industry

2. Government failure

in the case of external effects, only the government can come forward and improve it through various policies and measures. If there is no government intervention and public participation to urge enterprises to achieve "internalization of external costs", others and society will suffer losses. In order to solve the "market failure", the government often intervenes in the spontaneous allocation of resources by the market through various administrative means, but the role of the government is not omnipotent, but has certain constraints. There must be a reasonable procedure in the decision-making mechanism for the selection and supply of public goods such as environment. In other words, because the government and other social representatives directly decide the production of public goods, the government should make scientific decisions on the arrangement of public goods, and government intervention must take into account both fairness and efficiency. When the government intervenes or remedies the problems caused by "market failure", if the government's policies or actions are insufficient or excessive, which destroys fairness and efficiency, it will also cause "government failure"

(1) manifestations of government failure

the main manifestations of government intervention failure are policy failure and management failure. Policy failure is mainly manifested in the mistakes of policy decision-making, that is, the government is not as effective as the market. For example, China's policies encourage the reduction of packaging costs of products, resulting in the massive use of plastic packaging materials. The preferential policies of attracting investment have attracted a large number of highly polluting packaging enterprises to settle in China, which are the embodiment of policy failure. Management failure mainly lies in the existence of management costs, sometimes even more than the losses caused by market failure. When the government intervenes, it must pay decision-making costs and supervision costs, which are often high due to information asymmetry. In the production and consumption process of external packaging, the government intervenes to eliminate an externality, and the governance cost is sometimes greater than the social benefits obtained after the intervention, which leads to management failure

(2) specific reasons for government failure in the packaging market

in order to solve the "market failure", our country has also formulated various relevant policies to restrict the use of some packaging materials that seriously waste resources and pollute the environment and the production and sales of packaging products, and strengthen the management of the recycling and reuse of packaging waste, but with little effect. Che Xiangfu, Deputy Secretary General of China Packaging Technology Association, believes that there are four factors affecting the development of China's green packaging industry: ① the investment structure is out of balance. Waste packaging treatment projects rarely enter the "plate" of planning management and investors. ② The late industrial content of green packaging was not included in the national plan. ③ The state has not specified preferential policies such as investment and tax for packaging environmental protection projects, which cannot be absorbed