With the rise in disposable income, it is but natural that the spending power has shot through the dome of the nearest mall. I’m not going to give you stats here. If you want numbers, you can always find it in a survey report. What I find much more interesting is the psyche of the consumer.
Look around you, or better still, look at yourself. Mamma-mia …have we become materialistic or what?! Show me the greens and plastic….hmm…this might sound kind of confusing to the environmentalists though!
It’s freaky how today’s consumer wants instant gratification and rewards, disposes of old possessions and reinvents himself by constantly consuming new fashions, a new car, a new house, a new home theatre and what not. Now what drives this new emancipated consumer?
The show-offs that we are, we consume to convey a certain meaning about ourselves to others. An individual’s identity is linked with the products consumed. But then, at the end of the day, the stress of making life meaningful through the consumer lifestyle could threaten our sense of self and we would eventually have to answer the inevitable question “Who am I really?”
Well… I am Consumer…I am King!! But then, why do we have the Consumer Protection Act? Why does the king need to be protected? Is this all a farce after all?
As an Indian, the “Global Consumer” and “Urban Consumer” are new concepts that we can all definitely relate to. The magic word being “Mall”, the advertisers and marketers are only too happy to “maul” us.
Welcome to an Indian consumer’s world….
A consumer culture makes it easy to accept the slow erosion of social, political and moral standards, because their passing is hardly noticed – we are all too busy shopping – Al Gini.
As we delve deep into this increasingly consumerist attitude in India, we find that it is a logical conclusion to the rising fragmentation of joint families, greater urbanization and employment mobility across cities. This renovated social landscape has affected our basic way of living and correspondingly influenced the Indian consumer mind-set.
Take for instance the fragmentation of joint families – with regard to accommodation, one family with four brothers would now need four houses instead of one and that too acquired through housing loans. In the process, our vast vacant lands are soon filling up and when land is no more available, we will fill ponds and lakes and fell trees to create more surfaces to build huge buildings to house more and more nuclear families. Whew!
Now to pay off these housing loans, both the parents have to work. Children are left at crèches for the better part of the day. To make up for their inability to spend quality time with their children, parents end up buying stuff that the child might already posses and does not really need. What values would this child imbibe? That time is money and that both are depreciating.
Next, let us look at globalization and urbanization as being the causation for employment mobility. What takes place here is a clear de-linking and erosion of previously established norms and values. Material possessions gain far greater importance in re-defining the individual’s definition of self. Traditional society has now given way to the “BPO Culture” and the ‘Mall Culture”. The youth of today are being given the taste of the greens long before they realize its value.
Besides, with ever increasing competition in all spheres of life, the race is constantly on to be one up on the other. This translates into more purchasing, which is only fueled by the many products and brands easily available. But what does one do when there is duplication of products? Replacements happen faster than ever before. Earlier, the phenomenon of faster replacement was limited to products where technology would soon become obsolete. Now, even consumer durables are no longer a lifetime investment.
Today, we find that even humans are commoditized. Weight training, diet centers, cosmetic surgery, liposuction, these are only some examples of people turning themselves into human consumer goods. They can be and are increasingly being traded in for a newer model, if they fail to meet certain dictated standards.
With the increase in media reach and improvement in mass media technologies, advertisers are only too happy to hitch onto this bandwagon. At the fag end of the day, one switches on the television for some entertainment, and what are we greeted with but a whole load of commercials. It looks like we have programs in between advertisements, instead of the other way around! Even our glossy newspaper supplements are covered with huge page-hugging ads.
We have so much information floating around and ever so many “me-too” products, that the poor consumer is confused into making impulsive purchases; especially when the ad reads something like “buy one get one free”. How gullible some of us Indians are, with our “fukat” mentality?!
The flip side is that we are exposed to more global brands that are smart enough to get their products acculturated.
With an increase in spending power, comes chronic purchasing of new goods and services, with little or no attention to their true need, durability, product origin or the environmental consequences of manufacture and disposal.
As a society, we have gone from self sufficiency to the ridiculous goal of keeping up with our neighbours, as far as our credit limit or home equity line allows us to go.
Is this what we would call the true globalization of an Indian? - “You work in a job you hate to buy stuff that you don’t need to impress people that you don’t like.”
All in all, there is only so much one can own/possess at a given time. Considering space constraints, “Dump to Replace” applies to all areas of our life - be it in our house, our cupboards, or for that matter, even our hearts.
C’est la vie!
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