Packaging-free products: when retailers and consumers (re/mis) appropriate the packaging functions

Purpose – Packaging elimination for selling packaging-free products disrupts the usual distribution and consumption frameworks in which packaging usually plays a central role. This study investigates how retailers and consumers reappropriate packaging and its functions when it disappears. Design/methodology/approach – This research uses a qualitative data collection method with two parts: a netnography of 190 Instagram posts and 54 interviews with experts from packaging-free product stores (N = 10) and consumers (N = 44). Findings – Drawing from the literature on packaging functions and the appropriation theory, this research reveals that actors deploy three appropriation strategies: (1) imitation, a strategy that favors a "utilitarian" function of packaging; (2) adaptation, a strategy that valorizes an "environmental" function of packaging; and (3) creation, a strategy that focuses on an "aesthetic" function of packaging. Finally, this research identifies the dark sides of packaging appropriation in the context of packaging-free products—namely, the damaging effects on health, the environment, and social exclusion. Originality – This research contributes to the literature on packaging on a topic that remains under-investigated (i.e., packaging-free product consumption), though it is a growing trend that questions conventional models of product presentation. The article offers a discussion on (1) the new role of actors in the appropriation of packaging and (2) the ambivalence of the environmental function of packaging-free product consumption.