If Amazon Basics really wants their brand to be associated with being a good “value,” rather than “cheap” and “dirty” alternative to better brands and products, they really should be focusing more on USER EXPERIENCE from product design to purchase delivery. It’s that last one where Amazon is really noticeably failing with their freezer bags. For want of a simple, protective wrapper for shipping, the entire first impression of this product was irrevocably tainted and lost. Amazon, please focus more on value, and less on being expediently cheap. Being thrifty is a good thing. Being a cheapskate that cuts corners is not. Also, Amazon, when it comes to user experience, it’s the little details that ultimately matter more than spreadsheet management would seem to assume. Anyway, folks… If you’re looking for an alternative to name brand freezer bags like Ziploc, Amazon Basics might be acceptable. But, they are noticeably not the same in quality or user experience. Similar, but definitely not the same. Like others, we cautiously decided to try the Amazon Basics freezer bags because the price was usually competitive and the reviews seemed genuinely positive for the most part. The product quality is okay, but where the seal attaches to the bag the plastic is drawn apparently from the heat of attaching the seal to the opening of the bag. We’ve not had any of them tear along that seam; so, hopefully, though it creates a visual point of concern, it won’t be an issue for you either. These freezer bags look smaller, but that appears to be because they utilize an expandable gusset similar to the “stand and fill” freezer bags made by others. If you prefer your bags to lie flat, this may become an issue. Our solution has been to slightly under-fill the bags to get them to lie evenly flat on shelves and in drawers in the freezer. However, all of those relative positives being said for Amazon Basics, Ziploc Freezer Bags are noticeably a little better because they seal and unseal more easily, consistently, repeatedly, and reliably than Amazon Basics. Ziploc freezer bags seem to make the transition from food use in the kitchen to a second life elsewhere like the garage a bit better. Again, Ziploc’s better designed zip seal makes it more reliably recyclable and reusable. Ziploc also designs their bags with a larger tab on one side that makes it easier and more stable to open; so, you have no worries about it being difficult to open or contents spilling out everywhere. You can also feel and see the seal on Ziploc freezer bags zip open and closed; the seal on Amazon Basics freezer bags requires a few more passes with your fingers to make sure that they are properly and completely sealed closed well. Amazon Basics, though, almost always beats Ziploc on price, unless you buy your Ziploc freezer bags from Costco, especially when Costco has them on sale. The huge negative in our experience in buying Amazon Basics freezer bags is that when shipping the product from the Amazon Warehouses to you, Amazon is overly miserly and cheap because rather than put the box of freezer bags in any kind of sealed packaging or simply wrapping it, Amazon actually puts a half dozen shipping labels and stickers all over the actual freezer bag box itself and tosses it from point to point to point all along its way from warehouse to truck to warehouse to delivery vehicle to the floor of your porch or dropped on your steps, no matter the weather, rain, sleet, snow, sun, or curious animals. So, the actual freezer bag box is always covered in a layer of fine dirt and dust, and to keep the box from opening along the perforated edge that you’ll need to remove in order to open the box to extract your freezer bags, Amazon slaps its big shipping label across the entire perforated opening. Have fun removing that and dealing with the adhesive residue. So, as anyone who has ever removed multiple Amazon shipping labels knows, you cannot get all of the labels off, and where you can get some of the labels off, you’re left with adhesive on the box and parts of the box torn off with any labels removed. Sooooo…. If you don’t mind getting a box of freezer bags that are somewhat less in quality, but generally lower in price than Ziploc freezer bags and if you don’t mind the actual box being dirty, covered in labels, and left damaged by the whole shipping ordeal, you might be okay with Amazon Basics freezer bags. At this point, we’re probably going to wait until we run low again to see whether Costco has our preferred Ziploc freezer bags on sale again. If not, we may actually risk buying these again and see whether we’re forced to spend a half hour cleaning the box, removing labels to get into the freezer bags box, and trying to resolve the adhesive residue, which are all apparently part of Amazon’s intended user experience.????????
