On March 28, the China Consumers Association released the Research Report on Overpackaging and Consumer Perception. The report shows that 80.7% of consumers oppose excessive packaging. At the same time, there are many blind spots in consumers' perception of excessive packaging of goods.

The survey shows that 51.4% of consumers perceive excessive packaging issues as common, 34.3% of consumers believe they have purchased suspected excessive packaging products, and 71.3% of consumers believe they have been deceived, indicating that excessive packaging is deceptive, misleading consumer behavior, and seriously infringing on consumers' right to know. 43.5% stated that "they knew it was excessive packaging, but still chose to purchase without any choice", indicating that excessive packaging forced consumers to pay unnecessary packaging costs, which to some extent infringed on consumers' right to choose and fair trade.

The report mentions that in consumer impressions, products suspected of excessive packaging problems are more concentrated in large supermarkets and brand e-commerce channels, with a higher proportion of luxury goods, mooncakes, health products, packaged tea, and cosmetics suspected of excessive packaging problems. Data shows that although consumers have a strong awareness of deceptive over packaging rights protection, their actual rights protection actions are weak. Only 14.7% of consumers who purchase suspected over packaging products have complained about rights protection, and 69.5% of consumers who complain about rights protection are satisfied with the process and results of rights protection.

In terms of consumers' cognitive blind spots related to over packaging, although 82.6% of consumers have heard of product over packaging, 66.0% of consumers do not know the correct definition of product over packaging, and 92.2% of consumers are not familiar with the criteria for distinguishing product over packaging; Consumers mainly rely on personal perception to determine whether a product belongs to excessive packaging, and whether it is "deceptive packaging" or "luxurious packaging" is the most commonly used method; The calculation of packaging porosity in national standards is too professional for ordinary consumers and difficult to popularize. It is difficult for consumers to self identify excessive packaging and is prone to misjudgment.

In terms of consumers' attitudes and reasons towards excessive packaging of goods, the survey found that 80.7% of consumers hold a "majority opposition" attitude towards excessive packaging of goods. Consumers are relatively disgusted with excessive packaging of goods, believing that it will "promote the trend of luxury and bad consumption habits, cause environmental pollution, resource waste, and other hazards"; 64.1% of consumers believe that excessive packaging of goods is acceptable under specific circumstances, such as some consumers accepting excessive packaging for "practical value", "luxury goods, products that do need to be protected", and "some gift giving occasions".

In addition, consumers are concerned about the control of excessive packaging of products such as food, tea, edible agricultural products, electronic products, toys, etc; For packaging design, consumers believe that opening a "skylight" (with transparent display function) or expanding the scope of the "skylight" for packaging of edible agricultural products is more conducive to consumers' intuitive judgment and selection.

In terms of the perceived effectiveness of controlling excessive packaging of goods, the survey results show that consumers have a high level of recognition and expectation for national efforts to control excessive packaging. With the implementation of the requirements for moon cake packaging in the No. 1 Amendment to the National Standard "Requirements for Restricting Over Packaging of Commodities, Food and Cosmetics" from August 15, 2022, 54.9% of consumers believe that the Mid-Autumn Festival moon cakes in 2022 are "reasonable in price", and 41.0% of consumers believe that the Mid-Autumn Festival moon cakes in 2022 are "not over packaged"; For the control of excessive packaging of other food and cosmetics, it is necessary to implement the national standard "Restriction on of Excessive Packaging of Goods - Food and Cosmetics" on September 1, 2023 before the effect can be clearly seen. Currently, the overall evaluation of the control effect of excessive packaging by consumers is not very high.