Philips asked the supplier AllpakTrojan if it could create a new package. Because manufacturers usually use one supplier for the plastic part of their packages and another for the cardboard, “even before you make anything you’ve lost a little efficiency in the design process,” said Dave Hoover, sales manager for AllpakTrojan.

Image Batteries in the typical retail plastic packaging, top, and, below, packaged in cardboard.

With this project, though, AllpakTrojan could use a single material, and it went through a machine just once instead of the two to three times required for the traditional package. “From design to finish, it’s as efficient as it gets,” he said.

Within three weeks, AllpakTrojan had designed the new container, tested it by dropping it from various heights and putting it on a vibration table and had it ready. The toothbrush’s travel case protected the brush head, and cardboard compartments held the charger and toothbrush base. Without the fancy printing, shiny cardboard backing and plastic, “it’s much less expensive,” Mr. Hoover said. And the environmental benefit was significant: the square footage of material used was much smaller, and the cardboard was recycled and recyclable.

Philips said it was so happy with the change that it was looking to switch the packaging for other items. The company said it was also pushing other online retailers to adopt this packaging, to tepid response.

Shannon Jenest, a Philips spokeswoman, said the company had initiated discussions. “They’re open to the conversation, and I’d say we’ll probably expand our frustration-free packaging options with Amazon before we would see it come to another one of our partners.”

Environmental experts attribute the slow response to the intransigence of big manufacturers, the complexity in having different packages for physical retail and electronic retail and a lack of coordination among the major e-commerce companies.

“One of the biggest hurdles is to convince a company that it’s worthwhile, or the volume is there, to sell the same product in two different formats,” said Anne Johnson, director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, an industry working group operated by the nonprofit institute GreenBlue. And because retailers did not work together on a common standard, “you don’t end up with unified approaches to these issues, therefore you never solve these issues,” she said.