I’ve never considered myself a minimalist, but I also wouldn’t call myself a big shopper. Professionally, I’m acutely aware of the consequences of overshopping -- how it impacts clutter, finances, mental health, and even relationships. I’m also passionate about sustainability; you’ll often find me rescuing recyclables from the trash and dropping items off at my local transfer station.
So when I stumbled upon the new Netflix documentary, Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy, I knew it was a must-watch. While much of the film’s content was fairly obvious, its presentation of the staggering scale of consumerism still made an impact on me (just ignore the occasional robotic voice and AI visuals).
Here’s a rundown of some of the most eye-opening insights and why they matter.
The Science of Overshopping
Retailers aren’t just selling products—they’re strategically designing experiences to ensure you buy more. Maren Costa, a former Amazon executive profiled in the film, revealed how companies use psychology and data to influence our purchases.
“Amazon was designed for you to buy everything you ever need and more of it than you ever thought you needed. You’re being 100% played, and it's a science...to get you to buy stuff,” she explained. Every element of the online shopping experience, from page layout to font color, reduces the time you have to critically consider a purchase.
Have you ever searched for a gadget online and suddenly been bombarded with ads for it—and related items? That’s no coincidence. The goal is to make buying easier than resisting, ultimately filling our homes (and landfills) with items we didn’t even know we needed.
The Numbers That Staggered Me
The documentary highlighted jaw-dropping production statistics that underscore our insatiable consumption habits:
66.6 million pairs of shoes are produced every day.
68,733 phones roll off production lines every hour.
190,000 garments are created every minute.
12 tons of plastic are produced each second.
And yet, the question remains: Do we buy more because companies produce more, or do they produce more because we keep buying?
Planned Obsolescence: Built to Break
The life cycle of most products is shockingly short, and that’s by design. Consider your phone: the average person replaces theirs every 2–3 years, even though they are advanced, expensive, and theoretically repairable. 13 million phones are discarded daily. Yes, keeping up with new features makes you believe you need the latest model, but Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, points out that manufacturers have also made repairs nearly impossible, gluing components together and attempting to withhold repair manuals.
Fast Fashion: A Never-Ending Cycle
As an industry, 100 billion pieces of garments are produced annually. Gone are the days of seasonal clothing collections. Now, brands release new items constantly:
Gap: 12,000 new pieces per year
H&M: 25,000
Zara: 36,000
Shein: 1.3 million(!)
This "fast fashion" phenomenon leads to affordability and constant novelty. As a result, many of these garments are worn only a few times before being discarded.
While donating might seem like a solution, thrift stores can’t keep up. Massive volumes of unsold clothing end up in landfills—or worse, shipped to countries like Ghana, where beaches are literally buried under mountains of discarded garments.
The Myth of "Away"
When we throw something "away," it doesn’t disappear -- it simply moves elsewhere on the planet. Waste from manufacturing and overconsumption often ends up polluting land, water, and air.
Even electronic recycling isn’t the silver bullet we might hope for. The film shows scenes of workers in developing countries dismantling e-waste, often under dangerous and toxic conditions. The film also follows a television from an e-waste recycling site in Germany to its ultimate destiny in Thailand (even though it is supposed to be illegal to ship e-waste overseas, which is bypassed through bribery).
Breaking the Cycle
The takeaway from Buy Now is clear: We need to be conscious of the cycle of overconsumption and its impact on our planet, our wallets, and our well-being.
Start small:
Be mindful of your purchases.
Choose quality over quantity.
Repair instead of replace.
Hold on to electronics for as long as possible.
Donate responsibly or regift to avoid contributing to the global waste problem.
More leads to more: more production, more consumption, more waste. But by breaking the cycle, we can all contribute to a more sustainable future.
Our planet, our mental health, and yes, even our closets, depend on it.
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