They know fast fashion is bad. They save the basket and wait for the sale
What happened
New research from RMIT University in Australia has looked at why people who know ultra-fast fashion is harmful carry on buying it anyway. Ultra-fast fashion means companies that produce enormous numbers of very cheap garments very quickly, with new items appearing daily rather than seasonally. Shein and Temu are the best known examples. The researchers — Finela Quiambao, Carol Tan and Saniyat Islam — interviewed 20 Australian millennials in depth about their shopping. The study was published in the Journal of Global Fashion Marketing. What they found was not ignorance. The shoppers were well aware of the environmental and ethical problems. They could describe them. They bought anyway, and they gave consistent reasons: price, convenience, and a sense that this was not really their responsibility to fix. The most interesting finding was about how the buying actually happens. The researchers called it 'strategic spontaneity'. These purchases looked impulsive from the outside, but were not. People described filling a basket, saving it, and waiting — sometimes for days or weeks — until a sale arrived. Then they bought the lot.
Why this matters
For years the standard response to fast fashion has been to tell people what it costs the planet. Documentaries, campaigns, labels, statistics about water use and landfill. This study suggests that approach has largely succeeded at the thing it was trying to do — people know — and largely failed at the thing it was trying to achieve. Knowing did not change the buying. That is worth sitting with, because it applies far beyond clothes. It is the same gap that shows up with food waste, with recycling, with energy use. The information landed. The behaviour did not follow. The phrase 'cognitive buffering', which the researchers use in their paper's title, describes what people do with that gap. They do not resolve it. They find ways to hold both things at once: I know this is bad, and it is not really up to me. Blaming the companies, the regulators or everyone else is not dishonesty. It is how people carry on doing something they are uncomfortable about. The 'strategic spontaneity' finding also undermines a common assumption. If these purchases were genuinely impulsive, then friction — a waiting period, a harder checkout — might stop them. But the waiting is already built in. People are already pausing. They pause and then buy more.
What the evidence actually says
This is a small, qualitative study and it is important to say so clearly. Twenty people were interviewed. All were Australian millennials. The researchers state plainly that the study was designed to understand people's reasoning in depth, not to measure how common these behaviours are across the population. You cannot read a percentage out of it, and nobody should try. What qualitative work like this does well is explain mechanisms. Twenty careful interviews can reveal a pattern of reasoning that a survey of ten thousand would miss, because a survey only asks the questions the researchers already thought of. The obvious caution is that Australian millennials are not British shoppers, and the findings should not be stretched into claims about the UK. The companies, though, are the same, the apps are the same, and the sale mechanics are the same. The researchers' recommendation follows from what they found rather than from what they wished they had found. They suggest sustainability messages would work better if they spoke to what shoppers actually care about — affordability and value. Their specific example is showing cost per wear: what a garment costs each time you actually put it on. A £60 coat worn 200 times costs 30p a wear. A £9 top worn twice costs £4.50. That is not a moral argument. It is an argument about money, aimed at people who have already heard the moral one.
Practical advice
None of this is about guilt. Buying cheap clothes when money is tight is not a character flaw. But if you would like to spend less and waste less, the research points at some things that might actually work. Work out the cost per wear before you buy. Divide the price by a realistic number of times you will wear it. Be honest about the number. This one habit changes more decisions than any documentary. Notice the saved basket. If you already fill a basket and wait for a sale, you have a pause built in. Use it. Open the basket before checkout and take out anything you have stopped picturing yourself wearing. Turn off sale notifications. The sale is the trigger, not the browsing. If the alert does not arrive, the basket often quietly dies. Check the wardrobe first. Most people own more than they think, and the items they reach for are a small fraction of it. If something needs a small repair, fix it. A button or a seam is ten minutes, and a repaired garment has a cost per wear of nearly zero. Buy for the life you have. The strongest predictor of a garment worn twice is that it was bought for an imagined version of your week.
What to know
RMIT researchers interviewed 20 Australian millennials who shop with ultra-fast fashion companies. The shoppers knew about the environmental and ethical harms and kept buying because of price, convenience, and a feeling that responsibility lay elsewhere. The buying was not impulsive. People saved baskets and waited for sales — 'strategic spontaneity'. That matters, because it means adding a pause will not help; the pause is already there. It is a small qualitative study of 20 people in one country, so treat it as an explanation of how people think rather than a measurement of how many think that way. The researchers' suggestion is the practical takeaway: talk about cost per wear, not about landfill. It speaks to what shoppers have already told us they care about. Sources: RMIT University via EurekAlert!, 'Shoppers know fast fashion harms environment but keep buying: study', 20 September 2026, https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1144214; ABC News (Australia), 'Ultra-fast fashion buyers feel a lack of personal responsibility despite environmental concerns', 21 September 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-21/ultra-fast-fashion-shopping-behaviour-study-environment-ethics/107171048; Quiambao F, Tan C and Islam S, 'Strategic spontaneity and cognitive buffering in ultra-fast fashion consumption', Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, 2026 This article is for general information only.
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