The Reign of E-commerce and superfluous consumerism
I was recently watching a TED
talk by a retail expert from China, Angela Wang, where she spoke about the ever
growing influence of technology in the retail sector of China and how it has
made China into a huge laboratory for innovation. But what struck a chord
somewhere in me was something she mentioned in her talk : the spontaneity of
shopping trends. Five years ago, an average Chinese consumer was buying five to
eight pairs of shoes a year; the advent of E Commerce has tripled this number
to an average of 25 pairs a year! This fact stated by her gave rise to a very
ordinary question in my mind - “ Who needs that many pairs ?!” But the culprit
here is not entirely the consumer.
The E-commerce boom
throughout the world may have opened up entirely new avenues for trade and
increased the possibilities of a better life everywhere. But this boom has
majorly brought about a very unnecessary trend of shopping too, considering the
fact website developers keep in mind the consumer’s psychology and use it as
their main revenue generating strategy. E-commerce websites and companies, to
keep up with the extreme levels of competition or to dissipate the dire
pressure of creating revenue,otherwise risking funding from the Venture
Capitalists, tend to monitor your browsing trends via social media and search
engines, and throw up advertisements as and when you open social media. So when
your brain is already vulnerable with the dopamine release while on social
media, these attractive advertisements pop up on our screens, attract us to
their products, and Voila! We are successfully buying that pretty pastel
coloured jacket with fur in the middle of June!
This unnecessary shopping
trend, apart from making us mentally uneasy by increasing the quantum of our
already infinite needs and wants, leads to an irreversible phenomenon of waste
generation. The packaging materials used for every shoe that is shopped, phones
barely a year old thrown away in an urge to use only the latest in the market,
the off season clothes discarded after barely a month to keep the social status
of humans in the society: all these trends simply adding on to waste and
inflating anomalies like the garbage soup of the Pacific Ocean.
E-commerce may be among the
biggest trade platforms, but do not let it change your psychology or control
your finances. Be in charge of your needs and desires.
By Nivvedhitha Shankar
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