Harvard Business Publishing

About a week ago, my wife let out a contented sigh while browsing the Internet. She was visiting Amazon.com, and saw an announcement that the company was experimenting with hassle-free packaging. Amazon's move illustrates one of the important advantages that entrants have over industry titans.

Anyone with children (we have a three year old and a one year old) knows that gift-giving times go through a predictable cycle. It starts with ebullience as children open their presents. Then frustration sets in as you have to deal with seemingly dozens of small, twisted wires that take forever to untangle. You grumble about evil, profit-minded corporations, and your children just wonder if they'll ever get to play with their new toys.

Amazon hopes to do away with this hassle. It has worked with manufacturers over the past few years to develop packaging for 19 popular products that is easier to open and more environmentally friendly. If experiments with more hassle-free packaging succeed, Amazon plans to extend the program to other products.

It's a winner all around: less hassle for parents, cheaper shipping for Amazon, and less environmental degradation.

Don't expect this movement to spread to toys sold in Wal-Mart or other traditional retailers any time soon. It's not that retailers hate their consumers. They don't. They do hate shoplifters. Difficult-to-open packages are a critical shoplifting deterrent.

Amazon's direct-to-consumer model is shoplifting resistant, so it can design a solution that maximizes its profits and consumer satisfaction. Wal-Mart and other retailers have to balance their needs (and the needs of their shareholders) with their consumers' needs.

This example helps to explain one reason why disruptive upstarts so frequently trump well-resourced incumbents. As Richard Foster noted in his 1986 book The Attacker's Advantage, upstarts have degrees of freedom that incumbents could only dream up. Attackers should always look for ways to take advantage of incumbent weaknesses and blind-spots.

Perhaps further developments in RFID technology will result in a consumer-friendly shoplifting deterrent, but until that happens, pure-play online retailers that follow Amazon's lead could extend their distinct business model advantages--and the Anthony family might increasingly be free of "wrap rage."