Hello again! Today’s post could be more relevant to some of you as we will be talking about massive sales on online platforms such as Lazada (as seen in Figure 1) or Shopee. These online platforms would often have a lot of sales and would even have more crazy deals during periods around 11.11 sales. I am sure that some of you have bought things in these sales, or would have at least heard of them. This post will highlight how such crazy sales is another form of fast fashion and it will also contribute to the environmental pollution not only in the clothes production and maintenance but also the delivery process is also a big part of the pollution contribution.
Consumers get enticed with the low prices from the sellers and would often forget about the manufacturing process of the clothes that they buy online. These types of sales are encouraging fast fashion as they are trying to create sales for themselves by making their clothing very cheap and always having a new design. We have to realise that these clothes are not made to perfection and they tend to tear easily. Buying these cheap clothes could even result in more waste as we would dispose of them in a shorter time span than actually buying an article of clothing that is of good quality. However, this is not to say that waste from ‘better’ quality clothes is less because some brands still engage in fast fashion by producing much new clothing frequently. Fast fashion brands such as Shein (see Figure 2) are also taking over other fast fashion brands such as Zara and H&M (Reuters, 2020). The statistics are shocking as Shein’s mobile application has more downloads than both Zara and H&M’s combine (Reuters, 2020), which only shows the increasing level of clothes consumption.
In addition, shopping online and engaging with the fast fashion industry online requires shipping services and this process will definitely increase the carbon footprint of the consumers and can cause a greater volume of pollution. This aspect of pollution from deliveries of goods from online platforms is more intense as compared to buying from stores as the deliveries are less consolidated and definitely more spread out. Talking about such deliveries hints on the inevitable pollution in the whole clothing supply chains and online platforms have highlighted such pollution from deliveries much more clearly. As the deliveries could take place via different methods such as by air, land or sea, it will result in different types of pollution in our environment. Moreover, as the fast fashion industry has a very fast-paced production of new clothes, we will see more pollution as brands deliver their new clothes to the stores or to consumers directly.
To conclude, online sales of clothes continue to add on to the pollution from the fast fashion industry as the clothes demand continues to increase with greater sales. As more consumers engage in such great online deals for cheap clothes, we will continue to contribute to more and more pollution as we look through and understand the process of making clothes and delivering it to the consumers.
References:
Reuters. (2020). Chinese brand Shein gains on high street brands Zara and H&M. South China Morning Post. Retrieved 1 November 2020, from https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/3107086/chinese-fast-fashion-e-tailer-shein-takes-zara-and-hm-and.
Teh, J. (2020). What to Expect at Lazada 11.11 Biggest One-Day Sale. TechieLobang. Retrieved 1 November 2020, from https://techielobang.com/blog/2020/11/01/expect-lazada-11-11-biggest-one-day-sale/.
