Wednesday Walk: Would You Buy a Mystery Box?
Thinking about our purchases, where returns end up, and a long wait for a keffiyeh
Welcome to Willoughby Hills!
Every Wednesday, I offer a few short ideas that I hope will inspire you to do some more reading, thinking, and exploring. Let’s take a little walk together and see where the path leads…
The Buyerarchy of Needs
I’m always on the lookout for a good visual or other tool that can help remind me of some of my goals around reducing consumption. This pyramid came across my social media feed yesterday and I had to save and share it.
This artwork was created by
and shared on Instagram by Greenpeace Canada.
At the bottom of the pyramid is “use what you have,” which seems obvious but is a good reminder for all of us. For myself, I often get caught thinking that I need to buy a specialty tool for certain projects that is designed to do exactly one particular task. But upon examination, I realize that I also have an entire workshop of tools that can do the project well too, even if not designed for that one job. Sometimes it takes some creativity to remember that what you have works.
Above that on the chart, is “borrow.” I’ve written about this idea before and have pointed out how capitalism has primed us all to believe that we need our own individual versions of everything.
Just yesterday, my kids’ school emailed parents because they needed some boxes. Having just moved, we have a huge stack of boxes in our basement that I was happy to send to school for their use. Most people wouldn’t even bother to ask around and would simply purchase new boxes, so I’m glad the school emailed. It helped us clear some space and it helped them! The cherry on top is that our boxes had the markings of at least two different family’s moves on it because we had inherited them from somebody else who had recently moved rather than purchase new.
Next on the pyramid is “swap.” When I first launched my No New Clothes challenge back in 2022, I interviewed Amory Sivertson who had inspired my participation. She described doing clothing swaps with her friends, which seemed like a great idea. These swaps can also be done for things like cooking utensils, books, or really anything and everything!
After swapping comes “thrifting”, a recent favorite pastime of mine. We actually spent Thanksgiving weekend visiting two thrift stores. I walked away with two records, four CDs, and a nice wool sport coat.
Before purchasing comes “making” which I am very on board with these days. I’ve recently taken to making my own condiments- mayonnaise is surprisingly easy to make, tastes great, and I can wash and reuse the Mason jar I make and store it in!
Once you’ve exhausted all of the other options, at the very top of the chart, is “buy.”
The truth is, buying things is unavoidable sometimes. But I like that there’s a thoughtful hierarchy laid out by Sarah that can help us rethink buying as our first impulse.
Where Do the Returns Go?
People still buy plenty, and even more so, they return plenty, with a 17% rate of return of e-commerce items in 2023. In other words, nearly one in every five items sold online gets returned to the seller, which has become a big problem for online merchants.
I happened to stumble upon a store recently in Morrisville, PA whose entire specialty was selling online returns. It was called Raintree Shopping, and according to their Instagram, they opened in May.
Much of the store was lined with rather low quality imported goods that seemed to have been purchased in bulk and marked up for resale (everything from phone cases to body sprays to initiation Stanley cups). The items on offer made the Dollar Tree next door look like Saks Fifth Avenue.
At the center of the store was a giant bin that was maybe 20-30 feet long containing online returns, still in their sealed envelopes or boxes with “Returns Department” on the shipping label. It’s unclear where they all came from, but many were in Amazon boxes or envelopes (on their Instagram, an employee describes getting Temu returns).
The packages are priced from $1-6, but there is literally no way to tell what is inside. You might end up with a dog leash, a screwdriver, a child’s sweater, or a bottle of lotion.
Beyond that, the store also sold giant “mystery” boxes. Some were in medium-sized Amazon shipping boxes and priced at $45. They also sold giant Amazon containers claiming to have 50 pieces inside for $75. Again, there’s no way to know if what’s inside is useful or of interest- it’s a total gamble.
There’s an unboxing video posted to Facebook of a $75 mystery box from this store, and the contents were underwhelming: a hookah, an electronic hand warmer, a wooden shelf, and a lot of other random things. As I watched the man who purchased it go through the contents, I wondered how many of these items he would simply throw into the trash completely unused.
Again, as far as I can tell, all of these items were returned to a retailer and never even opened or checked to see if they could be resold to another customer. Instead, they seem to have been packaged in bulk and sold to Raintree Shopping (and other liquidators like them), likely for pennies on the dollar.
Liquidators specializing in online returns are popping up all around the country lately, a symptom of our hyper-consumption.
I did not take the gamble, but I wonder, would you purchase a mystery box?
Finally a Keffiyeh
For more than a year now, I’ve been wanting to buy a keffiyeh, the Palestinian scarf that many wear around the world to show their support for Palestine. But like any fashion purchase I make, I wanted to be conscious of where it was coming from and who it was benefitting.
While it would have been easy to buy one of the hundreds on offer on sites like Amazon for $10 or so, something about that felt exploitative on so many levels.
I had done some research last year and learned about Hirbawi, which is the last company to manufacture keffiyehs in Palestine (their factory is located in Hebron in the West Bank).
A real keffiyeh from Palestine made by Palestinians? I was sold! The only trouble was, so was everybody else.
Literally every time I checked Hirbawi’s website, they were sold out. And I checked it many, many times over the last year. I followed them on social media and would get alerted to restocks, but by the time I logged in, everything was gone again.
I happened to see a post over the weekend that they had done a big restock for the holidays and eagerly tried to check their website. I ended up in an online queue for more than an hour before I could even check their inventory.
When I was finally admitted to the website, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were still plenty in stock. If you’re interested, as of Tuesday evening, it looks like there’s still a few designs left, though most have sold out now again.
I don’t buy new clothes often, so when I do, I like to be thoughtful about it. I’m glad to know that my purchase is helping a small business in the West Bank survive amidst unthinkable conditions in the region.
When you’re doing your holiday shopping this year, please think of how you can support small businesses, whether in your neighborhood or in places like Palestine and Lebanon.
If we follow Sarah’s hierarchy and ultimately buy less from Amazon or Temu, maybe there will be a few less mystery boxes for sale at some random liquidator.
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Other Wednesday Walks
The Intelligence of Other Humans
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Great essay, as always. I've never been a crafting guy, but my brother bought me a 3D printer last year. After a few months of figuring things out, I've found it incredibly gratifying to make gifts for others instead of buying something and making parts and gadgets we can use. Our son is in culinary school, and I've been able to craft many things he can use, such as a juicer and cup that fits flush against the cutting board to collect your chopped or dead ingredients. FYI. I live 10 minutes from Geauga Lake and wanted to send you some pictures of the butt-ugly apartments on the site of the Big Dipper. The city of Aurora has bought 40 acres, which they claim will be preserved for greenspace and community access to the lake (many of the Seaworld and waterpark structures remain). If I had to guess, most of it would actually be developed into a "lifestyle" center with retail, office, and residential.
A specialty tool for certain projects that is designed to do exactly one particular task is called a unitasker. I believe Alton Brown coined this term.