![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eastasia-stateless\/2019\/11\/81b18b6f-81b18b6f-thankful-1.jpg\")
\u00a9Patrick Cho \/ Greenpeace<\/span><\/div>\nShopping has environmental impacts. We calculated that clothing sales during China\u2019s 2016 Singles Day online sales produced 258,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
- \n
- Clothing topped the list for most impulsive buys.<\/strong> 45% said they most often bought clothes on impulse, followed by cosmetics, food and then personal electronics.<\/li>\n
- About half of the clothes in their wardrobes never see the light of day!<\/strong> (How much of a bargain are they if you never wear them?!)<\/li>\n
- Holiday was a dangerous time for buying things!<\/strong> Greenpeace supporters said they weren\u2019t easily swayed by advertising promotions or celebrity endorsements \u2013 just 18% said they might be influenced normally but when they were on holiday, 45% said they had bought things they did not need.<\/li>\n
- Less is more.<\/strong> While advertisers are busy trying to persuade us that buying more will make us happier, 46% of our respondents said they agreed that shopping less would make them happier, while 70% said they planned to cut down on their shopping list and 60% said they would consider repairing something before going out to replace it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
What\u2019s clear from this survey is that is our supporters show an obvious desire for change, and that means more potential power to our Consumer Revolution!<\/p>\n
So how can we shop smarter when we\u2019re surrounded by tricks tempting us to part from our money. We\u2019ve compiled a list of the more common traps so that next time you go shopping, you\u2019ll be too smart to fall for them!<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eastasia-stateless\/2019\/11\/bef02981-bef02981-thankful1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n1: Buy one get one free<\/h2>\n
This is the oldest trick in the book! But it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re buying something for half price because you probably only really want one, so the other one will stay in your cupboard unworn, or if it\u2019s food it will linger in your kitchen long after the best before date.<\/p>\n
2: Gift boxes<\/h2>\n
This trick is a favourite of cosmetics and skin care companies. You think you are getting lots of different products for a bargain price, but it\u2019s a trap to get you to buy things you never planned to buy in the first place. Open it up and you\u2019ll find lots of products that you don\u2019t want and won\u2019t use. You\u2019ll have wasted your money and have lots of bottles cluttering up your shelves to boot.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-eastasia-stateless\/2019\/11\/69174751-69174751-thankful2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n3: Available only for a limited period<\/h2>\n
This trick is to get you to buy now before you have time to decide whether you want or need it or not; because if they gave you time to think, you\u2019d realise actually you don\u2019t really want it.<\/p>\n
Rather than chasing sales and promotions, just shop when you need something. Don\u2019t waste time clicking on offers on online stores \u2013 go for a walk, read a book, spend time with friends, cook a delicious meal instead (maybe, with a glass of wine!). We promise that you\u2019ll be happier and you and the world will be healthier!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\n\tWe\u2019ve all been shopping stupid for years, snapping up \u201cbargains\u201d in sales, seduced by advertising, loaded down with stuff to fill our homes, thinking it will make us happy. But ultimately it doesn\u2019t. It costs us and it costs the earth.\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":1402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"not set","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8],"p4-page-type":[16],"class_list":["post-1401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-sustainably","tag-consumption","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1401"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2068,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions\/2068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1401"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/eastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=1401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} - About half of the clothes in their wardrobes never see the light of day!<\/strong> (How much of a bargain are they if you never wear them?!)<\/li>\n