Wasted Chances
There’s that StairMaster collecting dust in the garage. And the juicer stashed away on the highest shelf where no one can reach it. And what about the five--no, make that the 10--pairs of shoes you haven’t worn in the past decade?
From shoes to jewelry, from toys to electronic equipment, most of us have been guilty at some point of purchasing items that we use a couple of times and then store away, or worse, that we never use at all.
Although marketers agree that there are pathological consumers out there, they are quick to point out that the phenomenon of buying and not using is common, and has less to do with indulgence or sloth than with jumping at a good purchasing opportunity and overestimating how much we’ll actually use something. And because a lot of buying is based on risk, there are always casualties.
“The marketplace is filled with thousands and thousands of dubious needs,” says Mona Doyle, president of the Consumer Network Inc., a research firm based in Philadelphia. “Why do people buy them? Because they look wonderful at the time.”
The result, simply put, is the wrong purchase, says George Rosenbaum, president of Leo J. Shapiro, a market research firm based in Chicago. “You have a lot of things that are not used for their intended life but used very briefly and then put in the basement or the attic or given away. In America, especially, this is a kind of disease.”
Research is scarce, or closely held, on this sensitive subject. After all, retailers and manufacturers are not crowing that some products often end up languishing in the closet. But, based on many interviews, there is a consensus on which items tend to clutter your storage space the most.
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Wearables: Doyle says shoes top the underused list of items for women. “You have to walk in those shoes,” she says. “You use them once, and if you don’t like them, you can’t take them back.”
Rosenbaum takes the phenomenon a step further. While some people overbuy, say, shirts, to make sure they always have them in stock, others buy simply for gratification and not for use. “It is legendary that people will die, you go to their closets, and there’s dozens and dozens of dresses in their original packages,” he says. Fine jewelry is another example of a product that is often possessed just for the pleasure of owning it.
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Appliances and Electronics: It used to be that sewing machines were high on the list of underused appliances. Now, only people who are truly sewing devotees buy the machines, and their usage rate is high. The same does not apply for many appliances and pieces of fancy electronic equipment that people use only a handful of times.
They are what Steve Hochs calls throwaway purchases. “You use them once, then put them way, out of sight and out of mind,” says Hochs, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in Philadelphia. Top on the list, Doyle says, are juicers, because they are just too hard to clean up.
Ditto for specialty appliances, such as tea brewers, mix masters, crock pots, popcorn poppers, humidifiers and vaporizers. Bread machines and cappuccino makers, on the other hand, seem to get a run for their money because they’re easy to use and don’t require much cleanup. Surprisingly, some of the least used appliances, according to a recent study, are blenders and mixers. In a survey of 2,000 households conducted by the NPD Group in Port Washington, N.Y., only 33% had used the machines in the last month.
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The Health Kick: One of our less admirable traits is that we rarely live up to our expectations. It’s a fact the health industry has gone to the bank on. That is why health club usage tapers off so predictably at given times of the year. Larry Stahlberg, manager of Los Angles Family Fitness Center in Beverly Hills, says only about half of the people enrolled actually use the club. “Most people want results right there and then,” he says.
Some businesses count on under-usage. “You only have to look at the way products are priced to figure out they are being under-used,” Hochs says. “It’s not like they don’t want people to use [their product]. They just don’t want everyone to use it all the time. Look at America Online.”
In studies done by his firm, Rosenbaum discovered that as much as half of all home exercise equipment, designed to last for many years, was discarded or put away after as little as six months. You don’t believe it? “Check everyone’s basement,” Hochs says.
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Early Learning: At this point, you might be wondering why so many of us are throwing money down the drain. This habit of using things for only a fraction of their intended life is, in Rosenbaum’s words, “an American affliction” that begins with toys.
“If you look at a typical middle-class households, you find many examples of toys that were one-night stands, with which the child played once or twice and discarded,” he says. “Children learn at an early age that there are no consequences in putting aside a toy.”
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Gifts and Sundries: It’s not always the owner’s fault, of course. There are innumerable “wonderful” gifts that never leave their packages. The obvious solution would seem to be gift certificates, but even there we often blow it.
A significant number of gift certificates are never redeemed, says Rick Galagher of the National Retail Federation. Just as there are “wrong” gifts, there are “wrong” stores, he points out, places where the recipient would never walk in.
In the end, we would be wise to follow those three Rs they teach kids at school: reuse, reduce and recycle. But definitely, keep the rowing machine. Summer is around the corner and we need to be able to put on our swim suits.
