Amazon effect is turning the Tide

NEW YORK • Amazon’s rise is forcing laundry detergents to shrink.

Tide and Seventh Generation have introduced redesigned laundry detergents that are kilograms lighter by cutting down on plastic packaging and using less water in their formulas. They’re making the changes to please Amazon and other online stores: Lighter packaging means retailers pay less to ship the detergent to shopper’s doorsteps, making each sale more profitable.

For consumers, the new packaging has been designed to better survive shipping without leaking.

The challenge is getting online shoppers to buy detergent that looks nothing like the heavy bottles they are used to.

Tide is putting its detergent into a cardboard box, making it 1.8 kg pounds lighter but still able to wash the same 96 loads. Seventh Generation went with a compact plastic bottle that’s less than 22 cm tall, rectangular in shape and has no measuring cup.

When Tide unveiled photos of its new packaging this fall, social media users joked that it looked like boxed wine. And when Seventh Generation tested an unlabelled version of its new bottle, some mistook it for shampoo.

The downsized detergents are a sign of Amazon’s growing influence. Companies that have designed products for decades to stand out on store shelves are now being pressured by online retailers to make their packaging lighter to cut down on shipping costs, said Gary Liu, vice-president of marketing at Boomerang Commerce, which makes software for consumer goods companies.

Amazon, for example, may drop products from their website that cost too much to ship and aren’t making it enough money. Retailers decide how much to charge shoppers, but both Tide and Seventh Generation say they expect the lighter detergents to cost the same as traditional ones.

Tide says its Eco-box has 60 per cent less plastic and uses 30 per cent less water in its soap than its 150-ounce bottles. The boxed detergent doesn’t need to be packed in another box: online retailers can just slap an address on it, another way to save costs.

Seventh Generation, which is owned by Unilever, spent about three years developing its smaller bottle. It is 2.2 kg lighter than its standard 100-ounce bottle. It still washes the same 66 loads as the heavier one, the company said. The measuring cup was replaced with a cap that automatically squirts out the right amount needed for a single load of laundry.

To educate shoppers, Seventh Generation posted videos and graphics on Amazon that show how to use the new bottle and how it can wash the same amount of loads as larger bottles.

“Changing people’s behaviour is always a challenging thing to do,” Seventh Generation CEO Joey Bergstein said.