CNN
—

Aria Liu, 17, regularly posts videos of her shopping trips on her YouTube channel, which has 300,000 subscribers. She films her forays by showing a live feed of her laptop screen as she purchases carts full of clothes and makeup worth up to a thousand dollars.

“I shop a lot more online,” she told CNN. “I don’t know why, but when I shop online, money doesn’t feel real.”

Liu is not alone. Shopping hauls have been around for years, if not decades. But experts say the heavy product mix that is ubiquitous in social media feeds and shows up as algorithm-driven recommendations, as well as buy now, pay later programs and a constant loop of sales, has meant that bulk purchases of clothing, cosmetics and more at once have become more commonplace.

It’s not just an online influencer trend: The average number of items per transaction in the consumer goods category is at its highest in the past 12 months, averaging nearly 11 products per order, according to digital marketing platform Dynamic Yield. That’s even stronger than sales during the holiday shopping season last December. The average value of a digital shopping cart is also at a 12-month high, increasing $50 from June to $206 per order, Dynamic Yield reported.

We may not all be shopping until we drop, but consumer spending has remained frighteningly robust despite an economy showing signs of stress. The U.S. Commerce Department reported that retail sales in July far exceeded economists’ expectations, rising 1% after falling 0.2% in June.

One factor driving purchasing growth could be the ubiquity of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) offerings such as Klarna and Afterpay are becoming increasingly popular. Even a lack of instant cash has become less of an obstacle for shopping.

“People who exhibit strong materialism and impulsive behavior are more likely to become BNPL customers,” says Philippa Ward, marketing professor at the University of Gloucestershire. This type of short-term financing can increase impulse buying tendencies, she adds.

But economists and consumer advocates have raised concerns about BNPL. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York earlier this year showed that people with tighter finances, such as a credit score below 620, are more than three times as likely to use BNPL multiple times a year as other, more financially stable people.

The influencers and the influenced

Shopping sprees can make a lot of money for influencers and social platforms – and have a huge impact on consumer behavior. These platforms are gradually making online purchases seamless, turning passive entertainment into a potentially expensive habit – which is a cause for concern for people who can’t afford it.

Katie Fang has a loyal audience of over five million followers on TikTok, which launched in 2016. Her “Get Ready with Me” videos, in which viewers follow her makeup routine, have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

Outside of TikTok, their fans can purchase the products used in their videos on ShopMy, a platform launched in 2020 that content creators use to tout products. These types of tools have also helped make hauls increasingly visible—and in turn, increased social pressure on others to get in on the action themselves.

But social media platforms themselves are also trying to break into retail, evolving from places where users could find inspiration for items to add to their wish lists to places where they could purchase said items without leaving the site.

Last year alone, people watched over 30 billion hours of shopping content on YouTube, the company told CNN in an email. In 2023, it planned to expand its position in retail with the launch of YouTube Shopping, which lets content creators tag products from brands featured in their videos and earn commissions on sales.

TikTok also launched its own shopping platform called TikTok Shop in 2023 and has grown to over 500,000 sellers in the U.S., including brands like L’Oreal and Elf Cosmetics, according to a spokesperson.

But even as an influencer, Fang says she is not immune to the influence of social media.

“I feel like the beauty industry on TikTok has exploded recently. There are so many new things that I get so easily influenced,” she said. “When I see something trending on TikTok, I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I need that.'”

The company said it was responsible for 15% of product discoveries in 2022, with hashtags like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt playing a role.

According to a survey conducted by WalletHub in June, two in three Americans believe social media leads to overspending. And in addition to the social media feed, personalized recommendations directly from a retailer’s website are also effective ways to get shoppers to add more items to their digital shopping cart.

“The most powerful tools online retailers have compared to offline retailers are algorithms, data processing tools and information about you,” says Matthias Lehner, a researcher at the Centre for Retail Research at Lund University in Lund, Sweden.

And as more companies invest in artificial intelligence, the algorithms used to personalize users’ shopping experiences are becoming more sophisticated.

One example is Amazon, which launched an AI-powered feature earlier this year to help customers shop for clothes, taking into account their previous purchases and past size preferences to find the best fit for them.

“Sales associates in physical stores can personalize your shopping experience, but it might not be long before the AI-powered digital assistant is better able to sell and recommend things to you,” Lehner said.

But the shopping spree trend is battling another online trend: “Underconsumption Core,” a countermovement of “de-influencers” who speak out against buying products. This movement is quickly gaining traction on social media and represents an antithesis to a seemingly nonstop culture of shopping.

But de-influence should be more than just a hashtag or a passing trend, says Katrina Caspelich, marketing director at Remake, a nonprofit organization that advocates for human rights and climate justice in the apparel industry.

There is also a growing body of research that questions whether social media can be dangerous, especially for younger users. While there is still much to learn, the research underscores how much our internet use and online interactions have changed in a generation.

And with the fashion industry estimated to be responsible for two to four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Remake’s 2024 Fashion Accountability Report, more and more people are raising the alarm about the dangers of overconsumption.

“It encourages us as humans to use our resources wisely and squeeze every last bit of value out of the products we already own before we succumb to the temptation to buy the next big thing,” Caspelich said.