Lately, we're giving up fast for cheap when it comes to buying stuff online, swapping out Amazon for Shein and Temu. But shouldn’t we feel bad about it?
Shein and Temu have completely disrupted Amazon’s global domination plans by selling clothes and home goods for ultra-cheap prices, if not ultra-fast delivery – but at what cost?
Our guest, journalist Louise Matsakis, has covered technology, the internet and China for The Atlantic, Wired, The Guardian and NBC News. She also writes a newsletter about e-commerce in China called You May Also Like. She dives into the secretive world of made-in-China e-commerce, the stakes for competitors, and the ethical concerns for consumers who want to shop responsibly without breaking the bank.
Also, Vass tells Katrina that she can’t figure out her Shein shopping cart.
This is Lately. Every week, we take a deep dive into the big, defining trends in business and tech that are reshaping our every day.
Our executive producer is Katrina Onstad. The show is produced by Andrea Varsany. Our sound designer is Cameron McIver.
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Find the transcript of today’s episode here.
We’d love to hear from you. Send your comments, questions or ideas to lately@globeandmail.com.
Vass Bednar [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Vass Bednar and I host Lately from the Globe and Mail.
Katrina Onstad [00:00:03] Hi, I'm Katrina Onstad, the executive producer of Lately. Vass, should we bring in Jake Gyllenhaal for a second?
Vass Bednar [00:00:08] Yes, please. Yes.
Katrina Onstad [00:00:11] I think we should. He is the star of a recent fake ad from Saturday Night Live that went viral. So since you can't see it, here's what you would say if you were looking at it. All these happy looking models strutting around in very cheap, cheerful, potentially flammable clothes, familiar looking clothes. And then the voiceover gets a little creepier.
SNL Skit Voiceover [00:00:29] Fresh fits. No prisoners. Normal number of working hours each week.
Ego Nwodim [00:00:33] So like 40...or?
SNL Skit Voiceover [00:00:36] Or.
Ego Nwodim [00:00:37] Or what?
SNL Skit Voiceover [00:00:38] Don't worry about it. Matching sets $2.50. All workers paid, even ones with wrong religion.
Chloe Fineman [00:00:45] Wait, what?
SNL Skit Voiceover [00:00:46] XIEMU best factories, happiest workers.
Vass Bednar [00:00:49] This bit was called, "Don't worry about it." And did you catch the name of that so-called brand? Xiemu. It's a mashup of the two biggest Chinese e-commerce platforms. Makes me think of Shamu, actually. The whale. Fast fashion giant Shein, you get your weird crochet bikini there, and housewares giant Temu where you get your remote page turner for your e-reader. I think that video really connected, because it gets at the guilt and confusion that people have about this rise of this kind of direct from China, low price, slow shipping, shopping. It just feels wrong somehow? Like, just how bad is it for the environment? Is it gross? Is it wrong? That made me wonder if you're shopping on Shein, Katrina?
Katrina Onstad [00:01:34] Well, I don't personally, but I have teenagers, so the stuff is in my house like it's migrated into my housing from thrift stores mostly, right? Thrift stores are now stuffed with these goods. So I've seen some tube tops in a laundry for sure. What about you?
Vass Bednar [00:01:47] You know, I can't figure out how to check out from my web browser. I think I need the app, but I did try.
Katrina Onstad [00:01:53] Yeah, well, I mean, and it is all about the app, right? So that's probably exactly your problem doing it on a desktop, oldie! But everyone else is doing it. Yeah, Shein is the most downloaded shopping app in the United States, and the rise of this company is pretty extraordinary. It was founded in China in 2012 under the name "She Inside". People say it She-in or Sheen. Some facts: Shein has cornered nearly a fifth of the ultra fast fashion retail market. The company reportedly earned $45 billion US last year, and they've done this by gamifying the shopping experience. It's on this hyper stimulating app that you need to download, Vass, and you can see how successful they are by looking at some of these Shein haul videos that we've been watching all week on TikTok. They're incredible. There's just item after item, box after box, just so much stuff.
Vass Bednar [00:02:42] So much stuff. And it's made such a mark that they've got Amazon running. It was just reported that Amazon is launching a Shein and Temu competitor. It's a sub store that's going to be shipping certain lightweight, cheap items directly from China. It's going to take something like 9 to 11 days, which totally upends the whole 24 hour convenience model. And recently, our guest, a reporter named Louise Matsakis, had a piece in The Atlantic about this where she asked a really interesting question; are consumers ready to give up fast for cheap?
Katrina Onstad [00:03:15] If so, that is a major pivot for Amazon and for how we shop or think about shopping. So we wanted to hear more about this, and Louise's reporting on the world of fast fashion in general. She has a surprisingly counterintuitive take on all of this, right? She refuses to vilify China, who was often a kind of boogeyman. And she wants us to get real about how the stuff we buy gets made and gets to us.
Vass Bednar [00:03:38] Well, speaking of getting real, like another way of looking at the exponential growth of companies like Shein and Temu and how they've challenged Amazon's dominant everything store model, is that maybe just their core strategy, this radical reduction in costs to attract customers who want cheaper stuff, maybe that's just the next level of competition, and this could be more of a don't hate the player, hate the game situation.
Katrina Onstad [00:04:02] Except that people kind of do hate the player. At least they're suspicious of the player right? Here in this case, like, it's worth noting that the ongoing concerns about Shein's labor practices, which they dispute, are creating hurdles in their efforts to get on the American stock exchange. There were reports this week that federal and state officials are calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to potentially block the initial public offering in the US. So eyes on that.
Vass Bednar [00:04:26] Yeah. And our eyes are on our shopping carts. What? Today's show is a haul of our own. Louise Matsakis is a freelance reporter covering technology in China, and she also writes a newsletter about e-commerce in China, which is called, You May Also Like. Welcome to Lately. So you've been reporting on international e-commerce for years, and you've been on the floors of factories in China. Can you describe what it's like there? What did you see?
Louise Matsakis [00:05:10] So I think one of the things that is striking about the way that all of the goods that we buy are produced is that a lot of it is still done by hand. I think that there is a misconception that we have machinery now that can spit out T-shirts or little plastic widgets. But the reality is that there are people, human beings, who are making most of the things that we buy, and that ranges from a small plastic toy to a crop top made out of 100% polyester.
Vass Bednar [00:05:45] And I think most of us know what so-called fast fashion is. We hear that phrase, we probably think of stores like H&M, but what is ultra fast fashion?
Louise Matsakis [00:05:56] So historically, there were seasons, right? So like a brand would have their summer season or their winter season. But fast fashion is every time you go into H&M every week, every few days, those types of stores have new items on display. And now we're seeing the rise of ultra fast fashion, which is where a website like Shein has thousands of new items that go up on their app and their website every single day. So you're sort of seeing this acceleration of trend cycles, this acceleration of the variety and the amount of clothing that you can consume.
Vass Bednar [00:06:36] And it was recently reported in The Information, you echoed this in a recent Atlantic piece, that Amazon's opening a new discount online store for cheap goods that are directly shipped from China. This is stuff like clothing, household items that are less than $20, that weigh less than a pound and arrive in not the same day, not the next day, but 9 to 11 days. So does that mean that Shein has changed Amazon? And is Amazon actually scared?
Louise Matsakis [00:07:04] I do think that Amazon is maybe a little challenged or afraid of these new ultra fast fashion platforms and sort of hyper consumption platforms, which include Shein and then also Temu. So the reason that Amazon is now going to ship these really affordable, like you said, less than $20 items directly from China is because there's no other way that it can compete on price with Shein and Temu when it's paying for warehouses and paying warehouse workers in the US. So the way that Amazon can keep prices low is by ensuring the entire operation from start to finish happens within China.
Vass Bednar [00:07:45] What is it that Amazon might have missed that Shein got right?
Louise Matsakis [00:07:50] So I think that when Amazon started coming up in the early 2000, their main competitors obviously were retail stores. So they had to prove to consumers that Amazon was going to be as convenient as fast, maybe even more so than going to a Walmart or another retail store down the street. So Amazon had to say, okay, well, don't worry, this is going to get to you in a day or two and it's going to save you a trip to the store. You know, order the Halloween costume you need for your kid's party tomorrow. Oh, you ran out of toilet paper, just quickly order it and it will be here tomorrow. Whereas I think Shein and Temu are coming from this place of, instead of it being a chore, what if shopping were a form of entertainment? And what if every time you opened your favorite shopping app, there was lots of new things to look at that were curated based on the things that you've looked at or purchased previously? What if every time you logged in, you got points that allowed you to get discounts? It's sort of this idea of a chore or a form of entertainment. And I think that Shein and Temu understand that for a lot of people, it's fun and exciting to browse online and to buy more and more stuff. Whereas I think Amazon saw it as, how can you get this over with as quickly as possible?
Vass Bednar [00:09:16] Yeah, maybe it's something people are doing on their phones when they're on the toilet, realizing that they're out of toilet paper. We're keeping our eyes on the growing popularity of social commerce. Like when you're on Instagram, you can click on the picture of an influencer and buy her skirt. This integration of purchasing across social media platforms. When it comes to Shein and Temu, what is it like to shop on these platforms?
Louise Matsakis [00:09:42] It might be helpful to have the context that social media and shopping in China are one in the same. And any social media app that you log onto, there are many and endless opportunities to buy stuff, whether that's an influencer who's live streaming and, you know, selling the hottest new lipgloss, whether that's a brand that's sending you a notification for a coupon. In China, these two things, entertainment and shopping, are just considered synonymous, essentially. And I think historically in the West, in places like Canada, we've considered those two things to be separate. You know, originally our social networks like Facebook and Instagram, these weren't also platforms for commerce necessarily. It was mostly about connecting with people that you already knew in real life. So I think that Shein and and Temu, who really sort of embody that perspective and that attitude. So when you log on to these platforms, you are bombarded with, I think a lot of people talk about on Temu specifically, there's this spinning wheel that you often can like, spin to get a discount or a free item. Every time you log in to Shein there's lots of flashing lights, there's lots of things popping up.
Vass Bednar [00:10:56] A little bit casino like, but cute basically.
Louise Matsakis [00:11:01] Yeah. And also, I think a good thing to know is that when you open them up, there's a feed that you can just scroll through, and it's often curated based on other things that you've already looked at. So yeah, I would say for a lot of people it's a pretty overwhelming experience at first, but there's a customer base that really appreciates that. They are interested in those discounts, they like that there's always something new to look at. And like you said, you know, it's something to do maybe when you're sitting on the toilet or waiting in line at the grocery store, and maybe you don't always buy something, but it's exciting to see what's available. And it's interesting how those incentives shape the kinds of products people buy. Earlier this week, I was looking at some articles on WeChat, which is the main social media and news portal in China, and sellers who sell on these platforms were talking about how it's a lot easier to sell like cute tchotchkes on Temu than it is on Amazon. I think one of the examples was like these little crocheted animals that only cost like 3 or 4 US dollars, and they were talking about how that's the kind of impulse purchase, the thing that you might stumble upon. Whereas I think historically when you go on Amazon, you type in curtain rod, paper towel, like that's a very different mindset than like, oh, look at that cute little alligator figurine that I can put on my desk or that my kid might like.
Vass Bednar [00:12:26] Don't give me any ideas. I'm going to be opening a tab during this interview. I want to spin a wheel to my next question, and I kind of want to understand why was Amazon sort of caught unaware? Does that company just sort of hate fun? Like, who are these customers that they've missed out on?
Louise Matsakis [00:12:44] I do think that in general, Silicon Valley and a lot of other tech companies missed the rise of Shein and and Temu, and I think that has a lot to do with the types of customers that they have specifically gone after. And often those are people who don't live in major cities. They're often women. You know, I was looking at a survey this morning that showed that both she and Timo are much more popular among women in Canada than among men. And also they tend to be lower income. In the US Temu's fastest growing demographic is people, I think, between the ages of like, 55 and 65.
Vass Bednar [00:13:23] Wow.
Louise Matsakis [00:13:24] Yeah. So if you think of who is the opposite of like a young thirtysomething tech entrepreneur in a major city like San Francisco, I would say it's kind of like a 60 year old woman who's living in a more rural area. And so I'm not surprised that the sort of wider tech industry initially missed these platforms when they started growing.
Vass Bednar [00:13:47] So you're sort of touching on demographics. Is there a class aspect at play too?
Louise Matsakis [00:13:53] In one sense, I think that there are a group of people who are really price sensitive, and one of the reasons that they're interested in these platforms is because they can get a fun dress for a party or, you know, get a birthday present for their kid that they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford. And I think also it's about being able to buy a lot, right? You know, maybe you can afford that $100 dress from the department store in your city, but it sounds pretty good if you can get five dresses instead, that only cost $20 each if that's your budget.
Vass Bednar [00:14:27] And part of why those dresses cost so very little is because delivery is slow and we've kind of cut out or eliminated the middle people that sort of mediate our shopping experiences. Do you think this speed element is going to change anytime soon or does it need to? Are we actually willing to wait in order to save some money?
Louise Matsakis [00:14:50] I think it's already getting shorter. You know, over time I've seen Shein and Temu optimize their supply chains.
Vass Bednar [00:14:57] Wait, what does that mean? Tell us more. What does it mean to optimize your supply chain?
Louise Matsakis [00:15:02] That's a really good question.
Vass Bednar [00:15:03] Get me that crocheted frog now.
Louise Matsakis [00:15:06] Yeah. So let's just take an example. So let's say Shein realizes that a green crop top is selling out really quickly. They have this software system that they require all of their suppliers to use, and they can immediately see that signal and say to that supplier, go make 500 more of those crop tops. And once they're ready, we might preemptively actually bring them to a warehouse in the US or in Canada, because we think by the time they get here, they're going to have already sold. So they can use software, use these sorts of technologies to take all of that data from their customers and say, okay, like, let's just get ahead of it, right? And you could take that one step further. They see, okay, it's about to be summer in the US. Everyone is searching for a bikini. And so we're going to ensure that our bathing suit suppliers are ramping up their production now so that in two weeks before the July 4th holiday or, you know, before school lets out for summer, that those bathing suits are ready. So that's how they do it, is that they have so much data on their customers that they're able to use that to make demands of their suppliers, essentially.
Vass Bednar [00:16:25] It's really fascinating because you're sort of pointing to that arrow changing in terms of being more anticipatory, not just responding to trends, but being able to drive and stimulate them. What are the implications for other e-commerce players in this space? I'm curious how the growing popularity of Shein and I'll say, maybe it's cousin Temu. How does it affect the Canadian success story, Shopify?
Louise Matsakis [00:16:50] I think that what Shopify will need to keep doing is really pushing this idea of helping small brands and helping brands that have a really strong perspective. And I think increasingly that perspective for a lot of brands is going to be about sustainability, about, you know, we're making clothes that are going to last longer. We're willing to share more information with you about who produced them, because I think one of the main drawbacks of Shein is that it's totally unbranded, right? Like they are not tastemakers. If anything, they're a mirror that reflects the existing tastes of consumers, right? They're saying like, okay, we noticed that this style of pants is is popular already and so we are going to make the dupe of that $100 pair of pants that's being sold by a small Canadian brand through, you know, Shopify. And so I think that those smaller brands are going to have to really push to continue to be the tastemaker, because no one wants to say, oh, yeah, I got this from Shein, right? Like Shein is always going to be making the dupes.
Vass Bednar [00:18:01] And why does no one want to say that they got it from Shein? Where does that come from?
Louise Matsakis [00:18:07] I think that there is just an incredible stigma about things that are made in China, and even though the vast majority of the everyday consumer goods that we purchase are manufactured in China, there is this middleman in between, right? There's the brand, maybe the designers, the marketers, the social media people. They are all in Canada, or they're in the US or they're in Europe. And so people latch on to that, and they think that that makes what they're buying more ethical or better in some way. And I think that the reason people worry about Shein is that they know that there are corners being cut, right? Like it's really hard to find things on Shein that are made from more expensive fibers or that are really, you know, carefully constructed in a way that is meant to last. But I think that there are lots of stores that sell items that I think are of the same quality, but for a lot of people, it's really just about this idea that this is a Chinese company, and I know that all of that stuff is made in China, and that has this sort of ambiance of moral ambiguity, and it makes me uncomfortable.
Vass Bednar [00:19:22] But isn't some stigma warranted? I've noticed a lot of reporting on the environmental aspect of ultra fast fashion. You've alluded to this textile waste and emissions, and both Shein and Temu have been accused of using forced labor. If that's the case, why are we even allowed to access these apps?
Louise Matsakis [00:19:43] So one of the things that makes it really difficult to actually know anything about how the goods on Shein and Temu were produced is that they work with these enormous networks of suppliers. So it's not like they have their own factories. Or that they are directly employing every single factory worker who makes these items. They have thousands of factories that they each work with and they shift over time. Right? So maybe one summer crochet cover ups are really popular, and then the next season, you know, no one's wearing crochet anymore. And so they can just drop that supplier and say, oh, you know, we don't need you anymore. Or maybe, you know, that supplier is accused of using forced labor or it's just not meeting their quality standards. And so from one day to the next, the actual labor that these companies are relying on is changing. And that makes it really difficult to know whether what you're buying was made ethically or not, because there might be a Shein tag in the shirt that you bought, but it wasn't actually made by a Shein employee, necessarily, right? It was made by a factory that is contracting with Shein. So I think for me it's less about the labor standards in China across the board are bad and we shouldn't be making anything there. And it's more about how do you hold an enormous company like this accountable when the labor that they're using is changing so frequently and there's so little transparency into it.
Vass Bednar [00:21:19] Others have raised cybersecurity concerns about Shein and Temu being Chinese owned. And of course, this feels very connected to the national security concerns that have been raised with TikTok. Is shopping on these apps actually dangerous?
Louise Matsakis [00:21:35] I personally don't think that the data security issue is the biggest concern. I think it's important to note that in Temu's case, they are actually owned by Pinduoduo, which is now the most valuable e-commerce company in China, and they have over 800 million users there. So this is not like a sketchy, tiny company that is going to like, resell your credit card information, like they're making billions of dollars and they don't need to do that. I can't say that I've audited their cybersecurity operations and can tell you it's always going to be fine. I think there's always a risk with anywhere that your data is going, but I worry more about what these companies are doing to the environment and what they're teaching consumers to think about, you know, the longevity of the stuff that they keep. I think that is a bigger risk for people than the idea of, oh, they're Chinese and we need to like specifically worry about our data. And I also think that that narrative lets the wider fashion industry off the hook, because there is not a big difference between buying something from Shein and buying something from an H&M or a Zara, or one of the other dozens of fast fashion companies that are vying for consumers attention.
Vass Bednar [00:22:54] But it still seems like we're a little bit more nervous about these Chinese owned companies than others. Do you think that there could be sinophobia at play here?
Louise Matsakis [00:23:04] I definitely think that there's an element of sinophobia, and I think that what it is also is that people want easy answers, because this is an incredibly opaque industry in general. I think that consumers feel really alienated from the labor that produces almost everything that they consume, except for maybe like food at a restaurant where you could go, like shake the hand of a chef. We know so little about how the little crochet flour that we ordered for $4 on Temu was made, or the $10 pair of sandals from Shein, and I think people want easy ways to feel better about their purchases. And one of the easiest ways, maybe, is just to say, oh well, I don't want to buy stuff that's made in China. But the reality is that the origin of an object is not enough to deduce anything really about how it was produced. And I think that if that's what consumers want, if they want to feel good about what they're buying, they need to demand more from the garment industry, from the companies that they buy from overall, and not just look at the tag and say, okay, well, this is made in China and therefore it's bad.
Vass Bednar [00:24:18] Rana Foroohar recently asked, rhetorically, at the Financial Times, can you have both affordability and morality? She was speaking to ultra fast fashion. What do you think?
Louise Matsakis [00:24:30] I...It's a really hard question. I think a lot about how skilled sewing is and how difficult this is to learn. And I've learned to sew, and I was frustrated at first about like, oh, it's really difficult to make things that are as good of quality even as like what I can buy on Shein, because the reality is that this is really skilled labor and it should be valued and we should pay people more than, than we do. And so I think it's really hard to have something that's so, so, so cheap and argue that it's moral. But I think one thing that consumers can do right now is to value the things that they have, even if they didn't pay very much for them. What I worry about with the $6 pair of pants from Shein is less about ensuring that it's the most ethically made thing, but if that's what you can afford, it's about how do you take care of those pants so that they last, right? And that even if the person who made those pants is not being valued the way that they should be, I think that consumers can still value the output of that labor more than we do. I worry about how if things are so cheap and we see them as poorly made, or we see them as going to a landfill already, that that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is no reason that a $5 shirt from Shein cannot last years. There's nothing inherently about the construction of that garment that is so different from the $60 t shirt. It's really just about how the people who buy these products look at them and how we choose to value them.
Vass Bednar [00:26:06] Aren't they designed to kind of have a little bit of a short term lifespan? Aren't they lower quality or if the trend passes, does it make sense to really take care of my crochet bikini top for next year?
Louise Matsakis [00:26:19] I will not argue with somebody who says, oh well, the real leather bag that I paid, you know, $200 for has lasted way longer than the polyurethane, quote unquote vegan leather bag that I got at H&M for $20. Of course, quality matters, but there's no reason that we have to throw these items away after 1 or 2 wears necessarily. You know, there are ways to take care of them. And if people are going to buy these things, we should figure out how to mend it. You should figure out how to wash these clothes properly so that they last a little bit longer, because that's the real issue. I think it's less that the clothes are designed to fall apart, but these platforms are designed to convince you that it's okay if it falls apart and just buy a new one and you pay less for it than you did for lunch. So, like, why bother mending that whole right? Just come back to our app. There will be 20 more on our website next week. It's creating this consumer culture that it has to be disposable, but I think that it doesn't. And we don't have to treat these items that way if we don't want to.
Vass Bednar [00:27:35] Let's talk about another environmental element. So the delivery might be slow, but the sheer size of Shein has completely upended the shipping industry. According to data by Cargo Facts Consulting, Temu ships about 4000 tonnes a day and Shein 5000 tonnes, which equates to 108 Boeing 777 freighters. Can you talk about what effects this is having?
Louise Matsakis [00:28:02] We are drowning in stuff. We are drowning specifically in garments and fibers. The amount of clothing that is filling landfills that is overflowing out of second hand and thrift stores is unbearable. There's just so much stuff, and I really worry about when people go to the thrift store and they say, oh, it's just all Shein shirts and like, you know, I don't want to buy that. If you like that shirt, please buy it. There is nowhere for this stuff to go. It cannot be recycled. It's almost all made out of plastic, and it is incredibly environmentally intensive. And it's also human intensive. It's easy to say, oh, who cares about this pair of jeans? That was only $15, but someone made those. A real human being made those for you with their own hands. And what we are doing now is throwing them in the trash. We are throwing by the truck ton. This stuff is showing up in landfills and being put beside, you know, banana peels and coffee grounds and plastic containers that strawberries come in. And historically, clothing, fabric, fibers, that were sewed together by people, we did not consider those to be items that could be so easily discarded. But it's not just clothes it's also just all of the stuff, right? I think that is the thing that keeps me up at night.
Vass Bednar [00:29:27] How do the rise of Shein and Temu square with things like buy American imperatives and just broader geopolitical pushes to kind of bring and keep manufacturing back home?
Louise Matsakis [00:29:39] Yeah, that is sort of the really interesting paradox, right? Is that if you ask people, do you want to buy things made in China? Overwhelmingly they say, no, I want to buy things that are made in America. But if you say, do you want to pay the price for that? They say no. There's a reason that Prada is able to do these incredible brand activations, because when you go buy, you know, a handbag for $3,000 from Prada, part of what you are paying for is everything that's baked into the price. But I think that we forget that the reason that you can go to that Prada store and buy it in person is because you are also paying all these jobs that often are jobs that are still in the US or still in Canada. But I think we're moving towards a world where more people just say, I just want it directly from the factory. And so where does that leave everyone else in that supply chain? So I think it shows that while people have political opinions about consumerism and about the things they buy, when the rubber hits the road, it's like, well, I want something cute to wear to that party. I think that those things end up trumping people's political beliefs, and I think we have to get real about the fact that we are not going to start making clothes in Canada or in the US again, it's just not going to happen. All of the manufacturing technology, all of the skills, all of the labor force is already in China and other parts of Southeast Asia. And so if that is the case, we have to start asking questions about what kind of accountability do we want these companies to have? What information do we want to demand? Because the fantasy of, oh, we're just going to start making all this stuff in the US again, because that's a good thing for a politician to say, I think is delusional.
Vass Bednar [00:31:37] Okay. You mentioned that you sew. Is that a response to your reporting or just something you've always done?
Louise Matsakis [00:31:42] Yeah so, I had the privilege of learning to sew when I was a kid, actually, but I picked it up recently for two reasons. One is that I want to take better care of the things I already own. And then secondly, I wanted to get a better understanding of how clothes are made. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised, but I realized it's so difficult to make clothes and it takes so much skill and practice, and I think it's given me a new appreciation for garment workers and just how much craft goes into the things that we buy. The most recent thing I made was like a crossbody bag, I guess, I made it out of vintage Japanese fabric that I bought off eBay.
Vass Bednar [00:32:26] Louise, we're about to check out of this episode. Should we be shopping on Shein?
Louise Matsakis [00:32:33] I think that if you want to buy something from Shein, I would ask yourself, am I going to cherish this? Am I going to keep it for a long time? Does it serve an important purpose in my life? And is this what I can afford? And is there nowhere that I can find this second hand? And if you can answer all those questions honestly, then fine. I don't think it's my place to make moral judgments about how people want to spend their own money, but I do think it's worth just thinking it through and not letting the online casino, the experience of using the app, get away from you. I think consumers need to remember that they are in charge and that they have agency, and that it feels good, I think, to take care of the things that you buy and that satisfaction is lasting in a way that the high of buying a lot of new stuff impulsively is not.
Vass Bednar [00:33:29] Louise, we've cherished your time here with us. Thanks for joining us on Lately.
Louise Matsakis [00:33:33] Thanks so much for having me.
Vass Bednar [00:33:48] You've been listening to Lately, a Globe and Mail podcast. Our executive producer is Katrina Onstad. The show is produced by Andrea Varsany and our sound designer is Cameron McIver. I'm your host, Vass Bednar. And in our show notes, you can subscribe to the Lately newsletter, where we unpack a little more of the latest in business and technology. A new episode of Lately comes out every Friday wherever you get your podcasts.