Unsustainable shopping grows, fast-fashion searches up 30% in Lockdown 3

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Jan 19, 2021

A third UK Covid-19 lockdown has seen searches for cheap clothes, fast-fashion and easy credit payment methods increase substantially in January so far, a new study of online shopping habits shows.

Fast fashion/cheap clothing searches are up over 30%. Meanwhile, searches for ‘buy now pay later’ payment methods have seen a massive 86% increase over the last two weeks alone, with the study claiming the UK is continuing to feed an “unsustainable shopping habit”, The Biggest Bargain Hunters report compiled by Pink Casino shows.

ASOS came out on top for queries around ‘student discount’, followed by Boohoo. The report said: "This could point to younger generations perpetuating fast fashion the most, as brands like Boohoo, MIssguided and Pretty Little Thing are known for creating unsustainable clothing".

The latest survey also analysed the popularity and variety of money-saving searches made across the UK, to reveal which regions looked to stretch their budgets the most in 2020, “which exhibited the most unsustainable spending when shopping online”.

Last year, England accounted for the majority of the increase in ‘cheap clothes’ searches, while Wales and Scotland led the way for the rise of ‘free shipping’ queries. Meanwhile, London accounted for the majority of searches for ‘free trial’.

In terms of which discounts and deals Britons most value when shopping online, ‘cashback’ was the most-searched query featured in the study, followed by ‘buy now pay later’ - spurred on by pay monthly apps such as Klarna and FastPay.

The new data builds on The Biggest Bargain Hunters earlier study that showed search queries for 'cheap clothes’ saw a staggering 46.3% increase during the first three months of the first UK lockdown. Meanwhile, searches for ‘free trial’ and ‘free shipping’ then increased by 31.6% and 22.2% respectively.