One-Click Consumerism: How Amazon.in Turns Convenience into Overconsumption

-Avani Vaidya

With the beginning of the new academic year, college gates are once again lined with freshers, sophomores, and seniors; especially freshers dragging in three or four heavy cardboard boxes packed with everything deemed “essential” for campus life. Bedsheets, organizers, utensils, an InstaCuppa, and of course, we can’t forget the cool posters, fairy lights, and a stack of board games like UNO Flip, Monopoly, or Cards Against Humanity, because game nights are a campus essential too right?

And if you’ve forgotten something? No problem. Amazon has a neatly curated “College Must Haves” section which will guide you through with a checklist of items you definitely need. But here’s the real question, do you actually need all this stuff? Do you really need the overpriced table lamp with five lighting modes? Or an aesthetic fairy light which changes colors with a remote?

Image Source: Amazon India Instagram (@amazondotin) and Amazon.in product listings, accessed August 2025.

It seems like a helpful curation of everything you might be forgetting in one place, but in reality it is actually a carefully constructed system designed to encourage unnecessary purchases under the illusion of preparation. Most of the e-commerce websites like Amazon use it, the systematic word for it is “dark pattern”. It is a deceptive design technique used in user interfaces to manipulate users into taking actions they might not otherwise take. With the convenience of ordering in a few clicks, fast shipping, and receiving a neatly packaged box at your doorstep, it is difficult not to rely on Amazon for all purchases. However, the time we conserve for the purpose of convenience is placing us in both financial and carbon indebtedness.

Convenience culture is a climate issue because it requires more vehicles, packaging and warehouses to get our things to us faster and because it is so easy to order today and get it delivered tomorrow with Amazon Prime, we buy a lot of stuff we do not need, most of which ends up in landfills. In this scenario Amazon is preying on the vulnerable consumers, like freshmen and their anxious parents who nervously buy unnecessary items which the kids don’t really use later in their campus life.

This might seem harmless, when looked from the lens of  commodity market structure. However, if looked beyond the profit making motives of the capitalist economy we are part of, it is not ok. This right here is overconsumption. These unused items directly go in the landfills generating tonnes of waste. Stats from UNEP shows that the global municipal solid trash is anticipated to increase from 2.1 billion tonnes in 2023 to 3.8 billion tonnes by 2050. That’s enough garbage to cover the entire city of Mumbai in a 100 meter high heap every single year.

Now, for instance you decide to return the things you don’t plan on using, thinking that it will generate less waste. Let me break that myth for you. Returning an item on Amazon isn't really a simple "send it back, they put it on the shelf again" procedure; instead, here’s what happens:

●      Transport and Logistics - Returns usually result in carbon emissions that are 30% higher than those from the original delivery, reported by Cleanhub. The shipment is returned from Amazon’s logistics network, traveling hundreds and thousands of kilometers sometimes overseas as well to reach their destination. These shipping container greatly strain the environment. International shipping amounts to 3% of the world's carbon emissions.

●      Repackaging - Returned goods frequently need additional cardboard or plastic wrapping, which adds to the waste. Some products also need relabelling all of which also consumes more energy. Online shopping generates 4.8 times more packaging waste than offline shopping, found in a 2022 study. Imagine repackaging the items, which adds to these numbers even further.

●      Disposal over resale - When return items are received, the processing team decides whether it is financially worth reselling them, and unfortunately in many cases specially for low cost items and opened products it is much cheaper for Amazon to discard it.

Image Source: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg (Amazon Packages Burn in India)

India’s e-commerce has an industry-wide return rate averaging 17%, reported by TVW news. The reverse logistics of these online orders are causing more harm than any good to the planet. Which is why keeping the item is way better than returning it.

By now you might have realised the leading cause of this over consumption is the psychological manipulation tactics used on e-commerce, however, this is just a factor of what drives you to buy an item. According to Nosto “78% of consumers say companies’ social media posts impact their purchases.” Millennials in India spend an average of 2hr and 25min on social media, revealed in a global survey by Cropink. This might not seem much but this is also the same generation who are most vulnerable in trusting social media apps more than traditional marketing. For instance there is a “Big Diwali Sale” going on Amazon, they will post something like “₹100 cash back on carts above ₹450.” This might seem like a great deal but it is simply a nudge for you to add extra or pricier stuff to qualify. Usually parents on month ends while buying essentials can override their budget just to get that extra cashback without realising that this becomes a regular spending behaviour.

Amazon works fast but the company can’t keep up with its pace of work more responsibly, but now a lot of us are caught in this tricky spot where we don’t want to shop from Amazon but because it is super convenient it leaves us very few options. However, this is where we need to understand how to shop better.

To avoid falling for the traps and dark patterns on Amazon or any e-commerce websites for that matter understand common tactics and be a conscious consumer. Prioritize what are your needs and which products purchase can be postponed or avoided. For example, with the festive season coming up Amazon will bring out a range of items in the category “festive essentials” however, this time be smart with your shopping look at the list critically and ask yourself if each item is truly essential for you or just marketed as such. Check if you already have something that serves the purpose, borrow items you will only use once. Avoid falling for the sale prices and the phoney urgency created by “only 2 left” tags, “lightning deals,” and countdown timers produce; they are not real savings; they are meant to entice impulsive purchases.

There is a lot which goes behind your one “buy now” click. It takes a millisecond for you to click this button but it sets off a chain of events; warehouses in action, pick and pack, transport which burns liters of fuels, layers of packaging and tonnes of carbon emissions. All of this for an item you will only use for a few days. Don’t make the world’s wealthiest man wealthier on the cost of our planet, we can do better.