By now I don’t need to tell you that we’re in a cost-of-living crisis.
I saw a Facebook reel the other day, in which the creator stated her belief that we are seeing the last generation of great estate sales with beautiful, quality furniture. She wrote that young people do not value quality, high-end pieces in the same way as our predecessors.
I was really taken aback by the post, and the privilege that it exuded.
Young people in the big cities these days can hardly aspire to purchase their own home, never mind filling it with quality, high-end and therefore expensive furniture.
This week I also read a post on LinkedIn about the rise of Temu, a Chinese owned eCommerce marketplace that offers a huge range of products, which are often incredibly cheap. Surprised to hear that this new marketplace is taking the internet by storm in the age of Amazon? Well, this post was arguing that Temu is carving out its place in the market by being cheaper than Amazon – and gaining customers even though the delivery times are much longer. In the current economic climate, cheap beats next day delivery.
I worry though, what are the circular knock-on effects of our obsession with cheap? The provision of goods and services have costs, and often the biggest cost on a profit and loss statement is labour. Cheaper goods means less money for the business to cover costs, including wages.
So as the current economic pressure on regular people pushes them towards goods at the lower end of the price scale, the effect is that we grow the end of the market paying workers the least. This influences the ‘market rate’ of labour, which companies use to determine how they pay their workers. So, by buying cheap we may be reinforcing a lower market rate for labour – which increases the economic pressure on workers further.