The Problem

Our team member, Simmran, shared about the problems her cousin, Alina, was facing when it came to her shopping habits. Alina is a 14-year-old girl from a middle-class family in Singapore. She has recently become a bit more financially independent as she now has more of an allowance and has gained freedom over her purchasing decisions. Additionally, she, like others in her demographic, has fallen victim to the influence of social media and the countless extravagant shopping hauls, rapidly changing fashion trends and relentless advertising that plague it. This was only worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, where the online shopping experience was further integrated into the daily lives of everyone, including young teens like Alina.

We know that everyone can relate to such issues, either having been reckless shoppers ourselves or having seen those around us, particularly those in Alina's demographic, exhibit similar behaviour. Members of Gen Z (aged 25 and younger) are considered to be the most materialistic, desire instant results and appreciate the communication of brands on social media particularly through micro-celebrities as they find them more authentic (Djafarova & Bowes, 2021). In particular, Instagram is influential in encouraging impulse purchases amongst females (Djafarova & Bowes, 2021). Furthermore, Kim & Kim (2016) found that 60% of teenage respondents surveyed were victims of online impulse buying. Therefore, this experience seems to be most relevant to 14-16 year old teenage girls.

What

The problem at hand has arisen from the fact that many adolescents do not realise that they are consuming beyond their needs and are prioritising their wants over other considerations environmental issues, ethical issues, and money management. Gen Z shoppers desire the newest items at the greatest speed, making them less loyal to brands and more prone to being fast consumers of fashion (Djafarova & Bowes, 2021). As such, it is easy for them to engage in over purchasing, buying items just because they're trendy and discarding them over the fad is over, purchasing from fast fashion companies which have unethical and unsustainable manufacturing and distribution practices, and purchasing cheap, low-quality items which do not last long and hence become waste, leading to replacement purchases. Impulse buying can also occur when teenagers believe that buying objects will provide emotional gratification or minimize their negative feelings (Iyer, 2020). The issue is quite palpable, and our team can resonate with the effects of online hype and clickbait on consumer behaviour.

Why

The influence of social media is prominent among the young generation, who witness rapidly changing fashion trends, influencers who purchase and show off a lot of items and relentless advertising. The growing online shopping trend, which was greatly boosted by the pandemic, also enables such behaviours as it has become more convenient to shop thoughtlessly, it is easier to access cheap and usually unethically and/or unsustainably produced goods. Such distributed items and paying digitally rather than with physical money enable more reckless spending habits. We are aiming to target change in the behaviour of consumers by managing their wardrobes more sustainably.

Where

We find this problem particularly relevant to Singapore, as the engagement with such reckless shopping habits is mainly found in developed countries and amongst the middle-class. The target group at hand has reliable and convenient access to physical and online shopping infrastructure, as well as i-banking and e-wallet applications, enabling these young teens to remain within the continuous loop of meaningless, excessive and reckless purchases.

Our Question