live shopping is a fast growing issue... here's why 

The line about inspiring people to shop when they don’t feel like it got to me, wow

I know it might be a heavy topic, but if you could ever make a video on it, it would be great: people believe that sustainability in general can be separated from the human component. When people say making/dying a pair of jeans takes x amount of water it isn't sea water, it's literally fresh water your jeans are worth x amount of fresh water that people might need to drink otherwise. If you live somewhere with a water shortage that will absolutely wake you up. When we speak about textile pollution both in land and sea we aren't talking about a pile of cloth that just looks ugly and stays there, we are talking about cloths that not just kill/contaminate the environment of sea turtles or the dessert: We are talking about kilos and kilos of clothes being dumped in the ocen and being turned by the ocean into the greatly feared microplastics that everyone talks about as hormone disruptors among other things. Like rock into sand. When you throw away clothes or just donate them in a pile, they usually don't get recycled most of the time, they get burnt... Guess who is breathing that in. You. It's you. We talk about these things in numbers/quantities like school buses as if they exist in a vacuum. People, the price of our clothes is people: sometimes you and your family, sometimes someone at the other side of the ocean who isn't any less of a person. Saying something generates an "x" amount of school buses of carbon dioxide may seem like an effective way to communicate the volume and quantity but it isn't effective in communicating repercussions many people can and will turn a blind eye to most of these things very easily because they have been fed both facts separately. Like a child that doesn't yet connect that chicken nuggets are made of actual living chickens that he has petted before in a play farm. Reconnecting the items with their real price... in human and animal lives and quality of life, in ehat leaving them behind on this earth will do to their children, both here and abroad is probably the only way to have people make actual informed decisions on how much harm they are willing to cause. I have met one too many vegans who believe vegan leather as sold in H&M is this great thing that comes at no cost, and recognise polyester and other plastics and oil derivatives as monstruos things that have far outgrown the market that they were stipulated to serve, for me to believe these people have actually connected both facts. We need to do more social accounting, not just empty accountability of pointing fingers but actual accounting... of recognizing the pain, the illness, the explotation we cause. Clothes are not just clothes, they are a lot of things before they are clothes and they turn into a lot of things after.

Oh yeah, this is teleshopping for Zoomers. Just like how my mum would watch QVC for hours. (Though she’d watch Create and Craft for ages too, but in that one you’d learn things and get inspired.)

The parasocial relationship has such power! A lot of people are not savvy enough to identify what is and is not an ad when it isnt clearly labelled as such.

i just view live shopping as teleshopping for clothes on a bigger scale - actually when you said live shopper, i initially understood it as live (as in you pick things up as whatever is airing) so mentally included things like teleshopping in it

God I can't go live shopping cuz how do you make decisions in seconds?? I usually wait for weeks before I actually purchase them. the shortest would be 2 hours lol (means I would go back to that store again after wandering around the mall). and i always wonder the source of the items, very suspicious.. let alone fast fashion like hm and zara is already toxic, can you imagine this live shopping 😐

So I'm definitely guilty of buying without knowing about sustainability in the past, but I think it's on another level to be ok with promoting and selling to others without knowing or caring. It's frankly quite concerning. Trying to do my part to improve myself through a no-buy year. Katie, please keep making these videos to contribute to the "positive influence" of social media so we can combat these attitudes!! I and many others out here will always watch! 👏

Im wondering if that figure for China (45% of digital purchases made via live stream in 2023) is a direct result of their COVID 19 measures which were very strict until the beginning of 2023. Restrictions were lifted and infection rates skyrocketed by March 2023; that could be why a huge chunk of the population chose to shop this way in that particular year

Practical tips on living more sustainably that don’t require any purchases is a good place to start; it can be intimidating to the uninitiated. Like how to find people to mend clothes, homemade alternatives to household items (I don’t mean like….toothpaste made of dirt, I’m more referring to cleaners), tips on prolonging the life of produce with better storage, stuff like that

Not my thing. I spend weeks contemplating a purchase😆 Editing to say, yes people should know better now but even when people are educated they just don't care. I see it first hand with family and friends and it frustrates me.

I resell my old stuff on Poshmark and I hate the live shows! They have taken over the app and destroyed resale value of non live listings. I don’t do it for money, really just to make sure things aren’t going to end up in landfill but it does cost me something to print a label and ship it so it’s a bit frustrating that it’s pushing prices lower. On top of that it does also seem to be reducing visibility of regular posts! I am somewhat on top of it but for someone trying to casually resell I could see all of this being a big turnoff and instead of rehoming their clothes they might just “donate” to a place that’s going to ultimately put them in a landfill. Really bad imo.

There’s also “buyers remorse” returns. I buy and sell online. Some of the platforms I use recently introduced “live shows”. I’ve heard about many people requesting to return items they didn’t really want. 75% higher return rates than traditional online shopping. Unfortunately it targets impulse shoppers. They get more pleasure out of hitting “buy now” than they do from wearing their purchase. They regret it soon after. It seems like companies are targeting individuals with a “shopping addiction” to grow profits. It’s a legitimate mental heath disorder and there need to be better regulations in place to stop these unnecessary sales tactics.

I think live stream selling like whatnot which is a lot of second hand sellers and resellers are a great alternative.

your version of this sounds amazing

I presume that nothing can be returned if it doesn’t fit or you just don’t like the item.

Clearly I'm a luddite because i had no idea this was even a thing. I'm not certain why I'm shocked to find it that qvc but online is a thing but I am.

For your Questions part: I feel there is a real disconnect between budget and sustainable brands. If you are on a very strict budget and need a suit for a job interview and the thrift shop doesn’t have anything suitable…then what? I get a lot of the issues are overconsumption but if we are going to make real improvements we need to think about part of the reason the brands are popular and that is bc there is an element of affordability. Not to mention thrift store are pricing like they are fancy vintage stores these days. 2nd question but in a similar vain, thrift stores I find are worse than regular stores catering to plus sized people. Some in my local area don’t even take plus sized clothes. It’s only in recent years there has been a real movement towards inclusivity and plus sized people are catered for in “regular” shops. Now if you’re a plus sized person on a budget….would love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks

I think this is the Gen-Z version of infomercials…