Buy Me

The amount of nonsense products out there amazes me. Not only are they being produced, they are being sold as well: disposable mops, micro fiber dust rags, individually wrapped bath soaps, snack size anything.

Why create a market for something that is either useless, or breaks easily, and generally uses up valuable human and natural resources – apart from adding to the mountains of garbage? Somebody must be getting rich (or trying to at least) because otherwise all that stuff wouldn’t exist.

Actually product ideas are born every minute. They usually don’t require a great deal of genius. All it takes is a ‘visionary,’ someone who thinks their idea is going to make it big.

Quite often these products are being launched, backed up by a simple business plan, and the requisite financing. The rest is relatively easy thanks to low-wage developing countries with non-existent environmental and/or labor regulations, eager sub-contractors, and a “whoopee” pro-business environment that seems to be the Mantra of the global economy.

After all, everyone benefits when something is produced, right? The great inventor, all the different raw material suppliers, designers, consultants, the transportation and wrapping industries, port workers, assembly line workers, wholesalers, retailers, store clerks, the investors, the CEOs and, ah yes, the consumer.

That’s me. The guileless consumer, forking through stores like a kid with an Easter basket. And along with me there are millions, all looking, searching, scrutinizing and, more often than not and for no apparent reason, acquiring these products: Ever bigger barbecue grills, lawn-mowers, and TV sets; whimsical lamp shades, picture frames, greeting cards, and sofa pillows; bright colored plastic toys, hand bags, and holiday galore all of which will need to be eventually, dusted, stored, fixed, and/or replaced. And almost all of which is completely superfluous and environmentally unfriendly.

Going into a store generally leaves me baffled. Instead of going in and coming out within fifteen minutes, I end up pushing an over-sized shopping cart through endless aisles, rows, and shelves of products in every variation of shape and color that I do not need.

Quite often I eventually exit the store with stuff I didn’t come buy but that was ‘on sale’ or ‘sort of neat’ in order to attenuate my growing feeling of frustration at not finding what I came for in the beginning: Nothing cute, nothing special, nothing neat, just a cloth rag.

But that's the idea isn't it...?