Wardrobe Overload: Many People Buy Clothes They Never Wear

This article is published in collaboration with Statista

by Felix Richter

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday morphing into Black Week and Cyber Week and offers starting earlier and earlier, it’s easy to get carried away in the whirlwind of deals and discounts online and in brick-and-mortar stores. And while it makes sense for retailers to take part in these “shopping holidays” to maximize sales and clear out inventory, consumers should be careful not to be tempted too much by what are often just allegedly “the best deals of the year”. Moreover, 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 overload across countries. The prevalence of needless shopping varies from country to country, however, ranging from 30 percent of female respondents in the UK to just 12 percent in China. In the United States, 22 percent of women and 16 percent of men admitted to often buying clothes that ends up in the bottom drawer of their dressers.

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