Questioning demand: A study of regretted purchases in Great Britain

Why on earth did I buy that? A study of regretted appliance purchases

“…The principle that the current level of demand for new goods is desirable is also applied to the majority of environmentally extended economic models that are used to formulate options for reducing GHG emissions [10]. For instance, rather than focusing on demand-side response (e.g.…”

“…Furthermore, reducing these products and services would also be contrary to market forces, which play an important role in dictating the direction of government policy. The principle that the current level of demand for new goods is desirable is also applied to the majority of environmentally extended economic models that are used to formulate options for reducing GHG emissions [ 10 ]. For instance, rather than focusing on demand-side response (e.g.…”

“…In their paper, ‘Questioning demand: a study of regretted purchases in Great Britain’, Skelton & Allwood [ 10 ] propose that at least part of the solution to managing demand might be to tackle high levels of consumption that people later regret. The authors argue that regretted purchases indicate that the current level of demand is not necessarily desirable and, moreover, that if post-purchase regret is found to be widespread, regretted purchases may be used as a prompt to encourage people to question their demand patterns more generally [ 10 ].…”

“…In their paper, ‘Questioning demand: a study of regretted purchases in Great Britain’, Skelton & Allwood [ 10 ] propose that at least part of the solution to managing demand might be to tackle high levels of consumption that people later regret. The authors argue that regretted purchases indicate that the current level of demand is not necessarily desirable and, moreover, that if post-purchase regret is found to be widespread, regretted purchases may be used as a prompt to encourage people to question their demand patterns more generally [ 10 ]. Their survey on regretted consumption (which was administered by the pollster Yougov and completed by over 2000 respondents) identified that the vast majority of adults in Great Britain have regretted purchases at some point (82%) and the majority (68%) have regretted at least one purchase in the last year.…”

“…This paper takes the findings of Skelton & Allwood [ 10 ] as a starting point in further exploring the concept of regretted consumption. This is achieved by examining a number of domestic social practices associated with the proliferation of energy-consuming appliances in homes.…”