Prime Days Did Not Spark Joy

Over 175 million items were sold and shipped in one day or less during Amazon Prime Days—its two day birthday party which ended yesterday—boasted Amazon’s press release.

What speed! What scale! Now, where do we squeeze in these millions of new things? In our clogged closets? The shelves are already bursting, or maybe not— maybe Marie Kondo was just preparing us for Prime Days?

Way back in January it was reported that thrift stores nationwide were seeing huge increases in donations due to the popularity of Marie Kondo’s show, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” One donation center in Washington DC saw a 367% increase over the same week the prior year. The Goodwill collection center near me, in SF, saw a 30% increase. People everywhere took to social media to lament how much stuff they had while posting pictures of garbage bags to be donated full of things that no longer sparked joy.

Well, six months later here we are. Where is Marie Kondo now? During Prime Days 2019, Amazon proudly surpassed its sales from Black Friday and Cyber-Monday, combined.

Meanwhile, my streets remain cluttered, Amazon workers are striking over labor abuses, and Amazon’s power over us seems unstoppable, as it commands 47% of sales in the U.S. e-commerce market.

That’s entirely overwhelming.

Maybe we need a Marie Kondo hack, like a mobile plugin that will interrupt the checkout process. A new page can appear with a button that confirms the items in your cart spark joy *before* you buy them. Using her approach before purchasing is more beneficial than asking six weeks later, after the new sheen has worn off and these cheap sale items are now headed to the curb, the landfill, or a donation center.

sources: 1) https://www.today.com/home/marie-kondo-effect-thrift-stores-nationwide-see-uptick-donations-t146810, 2) https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/alexa-how-was-prime-day-prime-day-2019-surpassed-black-friday, 3)https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-commerce-market-is-now-49-or-5-of-all-retail-spend/