Too much choice!

[IntertwiningLeaves]

Has anyone else noticed this in general? It's been increasing over the years, but spreading to brands I wouldn't have expected.
I get overwhelmed by endless scrolls when I click 'new in' so avoid places like Asos and such, but noticed today that even Barbour had over 800 new in items for women.
Is it me, or is this unsustainable over the top? Do we need so much choice?

I preferred the old days (I know, I know) when new stock arrived and you could enjoy taking time to browse it, because it didn't go on forever, making you sit there, endlessly scrolling through with eyes spinning just in case you miss something good

I wonder if at some point people will just grow exhausted with it.
As of today, M&S has over 800 'new in' clothes items for women, and over 600 for men.
There are over 11 pages of results for women's new in at COS. And only 2 pages for men.

On a more reasonable level, Toast has a mere 151 new in items for women, and 34 for men.

Unless those number sit there for a few months (which they rarely do), then it does seem excessive.

Just for the record, I did not create that link to marksandspencers in my op.

Agree, I don't even know how to navigate Asos because I don't have the time to look at 1000+ dresses

I agree. And also I think the more items they produce, the lower the quality slips.
Barbour especially, now like the rest of high street with thin fabrics and throw away trends.

Ironically,, none of this is even cheap!

I think Sézane are guilty of this too. For me, it “cheapens” the brand, there is no lingering, no feeling of an investment - it’s just “pile ‘em high, and flog ‘em fast.” The feeling that you are buying something special that you will be wearing next year and the year after and the year after is washed away by the short term feeling of them.

I hate it that Boden lists all its items in each colourway so you have to scroll through 678,980,567 items every time.

What bugs me the most is that you'd think there'd be more variety, but it doesn't work like that. I see the same thing again and again, with few changes over the past few years.
Like if you scroll through 500 dresses, they will invariably be mostly the same length, neck shape and fabric.

I agree. I’ve been finding the same recently. If I specifically want a pair of wide leg trousers, for example, i don’t really want to have to look through 600 pairs, page after page!

@LittleMonks11 M&S do that too! Drives me bonkers

Couldn't agree more. The whole thing has made me feel overwhelmed. I've totally given up on clothes recently. Poor quality and a massive waste of time going to look for them browsing page after page..I think I'm going to turn into someone who just wears jeans and a fleece everyday. Sorry I couldn't be more positive but quality of fabrics is a joke these days. Items don't even survive a few washes.

I think on the whole it makes a lot of people want to minimise, there's something wearing about it all.
I would so love to be able to walk into decent shops now and spend a good half hour in there, feeling stuff, seeing how I look in it, i miss that so much!

This is exactly how I feel and have done for three years.
I used to love browsing.
Every damn thing I take a chance on is wrong, from the fit to the construction. No matter what I pay. I haven't bought anything new for a long time, but would love to

You say that, but for the most part I don't find it easy to find things I want. I don't tend to feel spoilt for choice.

Places with hundreds of items tend to have a broken or inadequate filtering system. For example, the automatically linked retailer in your OP shows up "Cotton Poor" items when you try to search for cotton.

Similar feelings to others - huge quantity of stuff, but all really samey , poorly made, uninspiring. Such little difference between supposedly different brands, now, too. I can’t tell Zara from M&S from New Look. All ill-fitting, fast fashion crap,

You’re not wrong … There’s far too much of everything, on almost every site. And they’re not even pretending that they expect to sell any of it full price. I’m regularly seeing about 90% of the previous quarter’s stock significantly reduced in the sales. It doesn’t engender confidence in the things being sold, and it devalues the whole shopping experience.

I think in the future, the smarter stores will reduce and get creative.
Perhaps not the bigger brands, since, well, investors, etc.
The whole thing feels ready to blow really. It's nuts.

Which also reminds me, brick and mortar stores aren't much different now.
I was in an H&M last week and everything was slammed together on racks, you could barely even look through them without having to hoist them apart.
They were so jam packed with too many items, and yet all of them were practically the same - thin cropped tshirts and skimpy see through shirts.

There's a kind of apocalypse vibe to everything, as if the stores are going insane in an effort to cram too much in. The overstuffed racks are so densely packed the clothes are hanging off, trailing the floor or just creased to buggery.

I miss department stores. Luckily I have two independent ones near me but I do miss House of Fraser in its heyday and having a John Lewis nearby.

Yes I totally agree. Online shopping is not much fun and yet nor is it necessarily easy to find things in actual shops. I often find my size gone, or a whole rail of size 8s or size 12s. I do go on shopping g days out sometimes and they are definitely more fun and successful but involve a lot of pre-research (online items to check out in store) and post research (ordering things online they didn’t have your size in). Exhausting.

On the point about a leisurely and not infinite browse, there’s also an underlying sense that if you don’t buy what you want now, eg a winter coat, it will be gone in a month, replaced by a million more coat options. So you don’t feel able to think well I’d like that but let me save up or see if I see something better or change my mind.

And pp is right, it does seem so unsustainable, and that the more stuff there is, the worse quality it gets. We know how much damage fast fashion does and really the last thing we need is piles and piles of very cheap clothes. Who is really enjoying that? I know there’s an argument it’s helpful if you are on a low income but you can choose whether to spend £25 on one garment or four, or even £10 on one garment or two. Cheapness can just encourage us to buy more than we need, and in our minds it has no real value and the things get treated disposably.

So true.
And the concept of assisting those on a low income has a down side: to cheapen everything to such an extent so that no one has a choice at all.
If we level a playing field to suit the lowest quality, no one ultimately wins, and people remain poor.
What would be more productive would be to focus on reducing poverty and raising our cultural standards, whether that be by education, rational house pricing, etc.

At the same time this is cultural, not just political/economical. I do think large sections of the population are happy to buy low quality goods for a few quid less, regardless of income.

I think I saw that site recommended on another thread here, maybe by you, @PassTheWineAndCrispsPlease?

It was someone else bemoaning the effort needed to scroll through 3000 garments on a shopping site.

Collagerie

does a similar, and really excellent curation job, from the cheapest high street to the most exclusive designer offerings. I’ve found a few new to me brands there.

Even when you filtered on Next you are left with thousands of dresses - who has the time for that? 🤷‍♀️

You should have a read of Less by Patrick Grant OP, I think you'd enjoy it.