I’m a strictly online shopper. Especially when it comes to clothes, it’s much easier to find what I want through Pinterest or a Google search than to hunt tirelessly in a mall for the perfect outfit. The risks are just too high.
The more I partake in online shopping escapades, though, the more I’ve noticed some glaring details. One time, I bought socks and a t-shirt from one shop and was granted an extremely frustrating experience. The items took three months to get to me, a time usually allotted to overseas deliveries. However, when I looked up the location of the warehouse, I saw that it was in California. They blamed backups on the pandemic, but COVID had long passed. I did more research, searched on Reddit, and looked up Better Business Bureau (BBB) ratings. I wanted to find out what was really behind this terrible customer service.
From online comments, I found that this store has a past of providing similar service, with deliveries taking three months or some customers never receiving their items. Their ratings on Trustpilot and the BBB were three stars or lower. The stories piled up. Some commenters recalled having to beg and harass the shop to at least give them a refund. It dampened what I thought would be an easy way to receive the clothes I wanted.
From other experiences, I noticed when searching online that a lot of stores carried identical items. Strange. Each store brands itself as unique and specially made, but it appears as if they’re getting their products from the same supplier. The supplier in question tended to be Alibaba, a Chinese company that specializes in e-commerce. It’s heavily utilized by drop shippers or individuals who move goods from the manufacturer directly to the retailer without going through typical distribution channels. They usually buy low and sell high to hopefully make a quick buck. It became inherently clear that this world of online shopping was a lie that held a hidden truth about fast fashion and exploitative capitalist practices. It disregarded the customer and the workers and shows a larger issue within business practices that we’ve been forced to ignore.
The Trendsetters
Amazon is one of the leading e-commerce websites worldwide with an annual revenue of $574 billion in 2023. There is no doubt Americans go to this site to get items quickly. With their expansion to other spaces like groceries, long history in books and current success in online selling, they have a near monopoly on e-commerce.
A lot of these same issues, however, are exhibited on the site, specifically the oversaturation of similar products. The Intelligencer has aptly named this “Amazon Junkification.” For example, when searching for a simple item like a basketball, you are met with a plethora of oddly named brands, all of which are advertised. The top searches may also have items you really didn’t ask for, like glow-in-the-dark or reflective basketballs. It’s fun, but I just want a simple ball!
Amazon has implemented a few practices that overrun their site with this trend. Firstly, Amazon relies almost exclusively on third-party shops. Sellers must pay for sponsorships to grant them a spot at the top of the search list as well as warehouse and shipping fees to be a part of Amazon Prime.
They also aggressively recruit from China as well. According to the Intelligencer, “Amazon’s cross-border commerce arrangements have led to the creation of a delightfully weird branding language almost unique to Amazon, whose marketplace affords special privileges to brands with registered American trademarks. Strings of unpronounceable letters are intended to move easily through the trademarking process; on Amazon, where star ratings and search placement are king, their uselessness as conventional brands doesn’t really matter, so “IOCBYHZ,” “BANKKY” and “KLAQQED” work just fine.” So, with this blend of overseas sellers and drop shippers, you get this blend of SEO mush.
For the average Amazon consumer, this doesn’t distract them too much. They grab what they want and move on, but The Wall Street Journal released a surprising report stating that Amazon’s customer satisfaction has fallen sharply since 2022. Surveys cited pandemic-related deliveries, poor search results, and low-quality items as the source.
This comes on the heels of another e-commerce giant threatening Amazon’s lead. Temu, another Chinese e-commerce platform, racked in 51 million active users by early 2024 compared to Amazon’s 67 million. The company uses the foundation of its parent company, PDD, to build a market base worldwide. Temu has become so popular that it boosted PDD’s market value by 74% in 2023.
But despite this resounding success, it perpetuates the same problems as its competitor. The app grabs customers with low prices and gambling-like deal opportunities. This has proven to captivate new users, but it doesn’t keep them. Temu has built a reputation on platformers like TikTok for being shady. Bad quality products, deceiving photos, and long delivery times have tanked its perception. Along with Morgan Stanley analysts claiming the company is cresting, it’s clear Temu isn’t a viable alternative.
The low prices from companies like Temu are also a reminder of the grueling task it took to get here. Operating costs for warehouses in places like China and Indonesia are much cheaper, inciting companies worldwide to build factories there. It’s easy to forget the comfortability of first-world America, but a lot of our clothes are the result of fast fashion or the mass production of items. Companies like Shein have been accused of this exploitative business practice that often involves forced labor. According to Anti-Slavery, “This includes 17.3 million people who are exploited in forced labor exploitation in the private economy.” So, e-commerce giants not only disregard the consumer but often exploit their labor force.
Companies like Amazon overwork American employees, leaving them with injuries and exhaustion, forcing them to unionize to fight for better working conditions. NBC also reported that they have a history of working with companies in China that are accused of forced labor. The E-commerce space is tied to every inch of exploitation imaginable.
Online shopping has slowly transformed into a sludge of search engine-geared titles and recycled products. Along with that comes poor service and a lack of respect for consumers and their working force. Especially with monopolies like Amazon, there is no other viable alternative. So, they continue to do what’s best for their interests: racking in ad revenue, union busting and partaking in forced labor. All these companies are guilty of perpetuating a cycle of unethical practices to fuel their empire.
