Manufacturers and distributors will figure out how to deal with any new regulations.
But what about people who need a cell phone or laptop shipped quickly to some place? What are they going to do?
It may take some work to hide a full-size laptop. Helen Keller could pick an undeclared laptop out of a load of Next Day Air. But what about cell phones? Regulate them out of the mix, and they're just going to get smuggled. Put some kind of surcharge on them, and they're just going to get smuggled. Why? Because people will still need to ship them, regulations or not. Their needs can't be regulated away.
For any regulations to be practical, they must recognise the need, manage the risk, and do so without adding a huge disinsentive to comply (like a significant surcharge to ship a laptop or cell phone, or some packaging requirements that are too expensive.)
People will manage their own risks. If the cost of complying with the regulations is too high, they'll consider the risk of being caught smuggling. Making the fine astronomical won't help if the maximum fine won't be dealt out.
The focus needs to be on making it safer, not just regulating the hell out of it. And the cost, well, the cost is going to have to be spread-out, and subsidised, or else compliance will be a problem. And if compliance is a problem, enforcement becomes a problem, too. (Think the speed limit. Compliance is poor, and enforcement shoots only at the most egregeous offenders.)
But the action will have to come from the government, and apply to all carriers. UPS, for example, isn't going to do anything that makes them less competitive with FedEx, and vice-versa. Niether wants to see all the cell phones and/or laptops being shipped by ordinary people go to the other just because of some added cost or packaging requirements, even if they do spread the cost as an overhead cost rather than a direct cost to the indivdual packages.