Apparently, we’ve burned enough cargo aircraft and killed enough people to require careful attention to detail in battery packages:
These “Ships from and sold by Amazon” alkaline AA cells arrived by UPS. They now fall under reasonable requirements to prevent shorting and damage, although the cardboard box wasn’t sturdy enough to prevent them from breaking free laterally.
One might quibble about the “Health & Personal Care Item” description, but, yeah, better battery packaging seems like a good idea.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
Ed, please do a capacity test as I know you have the equipment. I find them draining out faster than Duracells.
As nearly as I can tell, every “Amazon Basics” lot came from a different manufacturer with a different cell wrapper. The most recent AA and AAA gray cells were made in Indonesia, but the 9 V white batteries came from China. I’m reasonably sure testing today’s lot won’t tell us anything about tomorrow’s lot and, for sure, yesterday’s tests won’t predict anything about either. [mutter]
In low-drain service (clocks, remotes) they last for a year or two, which is about as good as it gets.
I’m reasonably sure I’ve gotten fake “brand name” batteries, so the best I can hope for is not getting counterfeit batteries labeled with Amazon’s house brand. No guarantee, of course!