Overconsumption: How Many People Buy Clothes They Never Wear?

Amid the deluge of shopping holidays and targeted social media ads, it’s easy for consumers to get carried away in the whirlwind of deals and discounts these days. Knowing the mechanisms that work behind the scenes, consumers should be careful not to be tempted too much by what are often just allegedly “the best deals of the year”. In many cases, it makes sense to hold on for a second before hitting that checkout button, because regardless of potential savings there is such a thing as too much clothes or too many gadgets, to name just two popular online shopping categories.

According to Statista Consumer Insights, many consumers admit to often buying clothes they never wear. In these cases, they could have saved 100 percent off the retail price by simply resisting the urge to splurge. As our chart shows, female shoppers are more often guilty of wardrobe overconsumption across countries. The prevalence of needless shopping varies from country to country, however, ranging from 29 percent of female respondents in the UK to just 9 percent in China. In the United States, 21 percent of women and 15 percent of men admitted to often buying clothes that end up unused in the bottom drawer of their dressers.