Arylene Westlake-Jennings: It’s time to get out there and shop in person
Korean gel face masks. A rotating condiment tray for the fridge. Noise-reducing earplugs.
These are some of the things I’ve bought thanks to social media, mainly because an influencer convinced me so.
And I’m not alone — today’s shopper doesn’t head to Murray Street Mall when they’re bored; they open up their phone.
According to HubSpot’s 2024 Consumer Trends survey, a decent 25 per cent of social media users have bought a product directly within a social media app in the past three months.
“Each scroll and swipe is a potential opportunity, offering a dopamine-driven delight that our brains are hardwired to chase,” marketing agency Kinetic319’s founder Adam Ortman puts it succinctly.
My husband doesn’t even blink an eye anymore if he arrives home to a doorstep littered with parcels, especially if I inform him I’ve already started on the Christmas list.
Online shopping, I’m almost embarrassed to say, has become the norm rather than the exception in our household as we find every excuse not to wrangle the kids through sprawling shopping centres.
Heck, I even take a bit of a punt that meticulous measurements will guarantee a perfect fit for the twins’ school shoes, and it has so far worked in my favour.
But I’m at heart still a Millennial, one who spent days after high school hitting the cinemas with my mates and ooh-ing and aah-ing over the clothes in the adjacent shops afterward.
Our high school was hazardously close to Orchard Road in Singapore, a shopaholic’s paradise so it was certainly a good thing we didn’t have credit cards to our names.
Then when I went to fashion college, my classmates and I would spend quality downtime rifling through vintage stores looking for something we could upcycle in the sewing workshop in class, or sifting through the latest fabric imports to find something we could turn into the weekend’s clubbing get-up.
These days, that is still my idea of a good time. My #mumlife version?
A day where I get to walk along those shiny glass-fronted shops, perusing the season’s latest designs, soaking in the refreshed colour palettes, silhouettes and fabrics up like a sartorial sponge.
Even better if I have a like-minded girlfriend with me, one who welcomes the way a well-cut blazer sits on your shoulders or appreciates the perfect way bias-cut silk crepe drapes across the body.
There’s no need to hand over the cash either to get that dopamine hit — those neurotransmitters that help control the brain’s reward and pleasure centres — it seems.
Researchers at Stanford found that when we see pictures of items you’d like to buy, a region of your brain with dopamine receptors is activated.
Simply put, shopping brings joy. Don’t do the shopping — groceries are a necessity, and buying those bananas isn’t exactly going to be exciting. Go shopping.
Yes, the cost-of-living crisis means feel-good purchases are a luxury for more and more households, but most recent trade figures from the WA Treasury Corporation reveal retail sales rose 4.5 per cent in a year in WA — the strongest in the country.
“The increase in discretionary spending in August was boosted by personal income tax cuts, ongoing solid growth in wages, government cost-of-living measures, declining inflation pressure and receding fears over another rate hike from the RBA,” the report said.
“The shopping spree was restricted to in-store purchases, with online retailing falling 1.1 per cent in August, following a 0.1 per cent decline in the previous month.”
While it’s too early to judge if this is the beginning of more sustained improvement in consumer spending, which was forecast by the RBA and the market consensus, perhaps it’s a sign people are cottoning on to the pleasures of shopping again.
I remember I once went to a Zimmerman warehouse sale in Sydney and it was rather exhilarating. I walked away with two dresses, a bag and a belt with change to spare.
But what preceeded that was a 40-minute wait in the queue with my best mate as we eyed up the racks from afar, billowing broderie and organza dresses swaying in the wind, beckoning us with all their frills and flounce.
It doesn’t sound like the most relaxing activity, but the anticipation was palpable as the fashion savvy were all there for a reason — to nab a bargain and come out looking bloody fabulous.
And what started as a joke has fast brought our family great pleasure. The in-laws only buy us birthday presents from op shops and vice versa.
We’ve gifted one another delightfully naff cabbage bowls, cat-shaped napkin rings and the creepiest rag doll next to Annabelle. Nothing cost more than $10 but it brought us plenty of giggles and amusement.
The there’s the thrill of the chase of a good Facebook Marketplace find, paying a fraction of retail for something. And don’t get me started on closet sales.
Follow the right people from the fashion set on socials and you might be privy to the ritual offloading of their most covetable items.
It’s bigger business in skyscraper cities such as The Big Apple and Singapore, where the likes of model/actress Chloe Sevigny throwing open their wardrobe results in round-the-block queues and coverage by The New York Times.
Yes, online portals such as Depop and Vestaire Collective allow you to bag a bargain from a wardrobe clear-out, but typing a couple of keywords into a search bar is so much more impersonal, soulless, if you will, and as ungratifying as shopping off Instagram and Tiktok.
Shop at your local, where there are often surprises to be discovered. Check your community Facebook groups, where something handmade might bring more joy than its Amazon or Kmart equivalent.
And next month, the Garage Sale Trail is back for another year — last year, more than 44,000 West Aussies shopped at 851 participating garage sales — so you can bet there’ll be plenty more keen to score a special find in November.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with trekking through the malls for the latest high street find either; go wherever you can find happiness.
Just don’t go to Morley Galleria right now. That place sucks the joy out of everything.
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