SUNDAY HINDUSTAN TIMES, MUMBAIFEBRUARY 15, 2015 17|

Riddhi Doshi■ riddhi.doshi@hindustantimes.com

Here’s how this story happened.

On a certain mega sale day,my 27-year-old brother woke up three hours early to buy a smart-phone for our dad. The websitehad promised him a discount ofRs 1,500, which he got. Chasingthe high of that discount, heannounced that he would alsobuy a flat-screen TV — which

he was “getting at a great deal” for Rs 25,000.Our two-bedroom flat already has two TVs, so, early morning, we were forced to talkhim down and get him to log out.

A few hours later, at work, a colleaguesaid he was basking in the glow of gettinga Rs 40,000 phone for Rs 23,000, but wonder-ing what to do with his perfectly functionalexisting one.

As we teased him about his dilemma,another colleague announced that she hadbought five “very pretty notebooks”, which she later realised she had no use for.

A quick post on Facebook, asking if there were others out there concerned about theironline shopping habits, garnered 20 respons-es in 30 minutes.

For many, the online shopping compul-sion is no laughing matter.

As websites turn to apps, and annualmega-deals turn into weekly snares, people, it turns out, are spending far more than theyrealise, and sometimes far more than theywant to. Some are running up credit card bills they can’t pay, others are borrowingmoney from parents, still others are runningout of space to put all their purchases — andsome are battling mounting guilt over pack-ages that were never even opened.

It’s a sea change from the time, abouteight years ago, when online shopping web-sites were dismissed by consumer behaviourexperts, who believed that the touch-and-feel-driven Indian buyer would never com-mit to an abstract.

“The advent of shopping portals andincreasing number of mobile internet usershas phenomenally altered consumption pat-terns in the country,” says Piyul Mukherjee, a sociologist specialising in consumer behaviour. “The ease and convenience of shopping online— coupled with the service-first approach ofeasy exchange policies, pre-payment trials andmultiple discounts — is making people give in to wants like they never did before.”

In this scenario, more is less, adds psy-chologist Deepti Makhija.

“The endless variety of products avail-able online, combined with the bombard-ment of SMSes, emails and customised adsconstantly telling you what not to miss outon, lure you into a consumerist cycle,” saysDr Vivek Benegal, a professor of psychiatryat the NIMHANS de-addiction centre run bythe National Institute of Mental Health andNeurosciences in Bangalore.

Driven by the compulsion, buyers are atrisking of contracting affluenza, says DrMakhija — “a painful, contagious, socially

transmitted condition of overload, debt,anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more”.

REELING YOU INIn a sense, the online buyer is heading

into a perfect storm.“Even though none of the portals is

making profits right now, given their huge logistics costs — and probably won’t for aboutthree years — they will continue offeringattractive deals and lowered prices as theyaim to change the Indian consumer’s mindsetand rake in the profits or get huge fundingafter they successfully build a large customerbase,” says Sushmul Maheshwari, director ofRNCOS, an e-commerce consultancy firm.

Marketing and advertising analyticsare also playing a big role, says NilotpalChakravarti, associate vice-president of theInternet and Mobile Association of India.

“When you talk about attending a friend’s wedding on Facebook, ads for portals sellingethnic wear will pop up on your page. Thismeans somebody is tracking your cookiesclosely and knows exactly what to offer you,”Chakravarti adds.

People are even buying jewelleryand lingerie online, encouraged by prom-ises such as Zivame’s offer to exchange theproduct how many ever times it takes tillthe customer finds theright fit. The websiteis now receiving eighttimes many orders asit was three years ago.“We get 2,500 ordersevery day,” says RichaKar, founder and CEOof Zivame.

This is driving thegrowth of the sector onthe whole. “In 2007, wecould count the numberof shopping portals onour fingers. Now there are hundreds of themout there,” says AshishJhalani, founder ofe-commerce researchcompany etailing India.

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Paramita Ghosh■ paramitaghosh@hindustantimes.com

At a job centre in Cornwall, Dean Biggs, the person manning the front office, stares at the letters of individualemployees explaining the reason for a leave of absence, piling up on his table.

It’s his job to take these ‘Sick Notes’ fromthe front desk to a supervisor. So he doodlesa design on the envelope each time a letterdrops onto the table, as a way of giving it hisown personal seal. Or simply to amuse him-self during work hours.

Zebedee the Tax Cat, made of an inflat-able ball in a tax office by one colleague for another, is another whimsical object, amongmore than 280 such objects, paintings, instal-lations, videos and posters on show at theFolk Archive exhibition at the Indira GandhiNational Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), Delhi.

It showcases a side of Britain that’s travelledless well to India.

A poster of Queen Elizabeth and PrincePhilip next to a directory of clowns;Princess Diana as a signboard painting in a beach town; a cabinet displaying spectaclesmounted with faux eyeballs; plastic severed limbs next to a bottle of ‘instant turd’; a pho-tograph of a motorcycle hearse, a funeralrun at 100mph by a cleric-biker for dead bik-ers; protesters asking Tony Blair “to listento them and not his wife” — the line betweensatire and subversion, comedy and pathosand the quintessential British sensibilityof getting on with life helped on by a drollsense of humour, is well in evidence here.

The Joke Shop cabinet is one of themost striking exhibits of the show. It hasbeen sourced from a shop in Blackpool,Lancashire, a popular holiday town, where it would appear that all sorts of digres-

ART FOR FOLK’S SAKETHE QUIRKY AND THE HUMOROUS ARE THE OBJECT OF THIS ART PROJECTEVERYDAYARCHIVE

sive behaviour are the norm as tends tobe the case in places and moments that are removed from our daily lives. “In FolkArchive, we have concentrated on a personalselection of things that caught our fancy;objects such as these particularly appeal toour idea of the ability of people to laugh atthemselves and the centrality of humour

in human creativity,” say artists Alan Kaneand Jeremy Deller who have put togetherthis collection.

Why is it that we have not seen such a por-trayal of British life before? Kane and Dellersay their aim was to present a picture of theUK from the ground level. “Everyday visualcreative energy is abundant in the UK, but isoften overlooked or undervalued. The typesof things in the show range from examplesof signs and marketing material, expres-sions of discontent and political affiliation,exuberant performances, costumes andactivities — almost anything we could findfrom the streets which had a visual excite-ment,” they say.

“Tar Barrel Rolling, for instance, a Devon annual event, involves locals running aroundtown carrying huge, heavy, burning barrelson their backs, and is an absolutely crazyevent,” says Deller, a conceptual artist who won the prestigious Turner Prize in 2004. “It’s popular with locals and visitors. It is incred-ibly striking visually, and it very much fliesin the face of sensible behaviour and of the

current climate of health and safety in theUK. The main conclusion we arrived at from making the exhibition is that people from allwalks of life are inventive, energetic, visually sophisticated, and surprising.”

Kane, for instance, draws attention to anexhibit, Protest House, a photograph of atenant who had a long-standing dispute withthe city council and used thefaçade of his house to plasterhis grievances on. The com-munity and the individual, more than the broad strokes of a ‘nation-al character’, are clearly the artists’focus. This is perhaps why individ-ual and folk politics, odditiesand eccentricities have beengiven the space and respectin this exhibition normally accorded to art.

(Folk Archive is on atMati Ghar, IGNCA, till

February 27)

■ Alan Kane andJeremy Deller, theartists behind theFolk Archive.

PHOTOS COURTESY

BRITISH COUNCIL

Lured by deals and discounts,a growing number of young Indians are finding themselves hooked to online shopping, unable to pay their credit card bills, and battling guilt over boxes that were never even opened

›THE ENDLESS VARIETYOF PRODUCTS AVAILABLE

ONLINE, COMBINED WITH THE BOMBARDMENT OF SMSES, EMAILS AND CUSTOMISED ADS CONSTANTLY TELLING YOU WHAT NOT TO MISS OUT ON, LURE YOU INTO A CONSUMERIST CYCLE.DR VIVEK BENEGAL, professor of psychiatry at thede-addiction centre run by the National Institute ofMental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore

STUCK INA BUYER’SMARKET

Anant Nigam’s friends call himShoppers Stop. The 20-year-oldcollege student is such an avidshopper, they say, that anythingyou need, chances are he either

has it or can order it for you in sec-onds, at a discount, off one of the 12shopping apps on his phone.

“I can never resist weekend dealsand sales days,” the youngsteradmits, laughing. “I buy everythingonline, from groceries to gadgets.”

Nigam spends his entire monthly allowance of Rs 3,000 online, andoften needs at least another Rs 1,000,which he gets from his father, a tech-

nician with a TV news network.“About once a week, I buy some-

thing — wristbands or gym wear, sunglasses, watches or gifts for mygirlfriend,” he says.

This is aside from the shopping hedoes for his family, who are also now hooked to the online deals. “Momand Dad were very impressed whenI showed them the online discounts. Now, they often ask me to use myapps to order groceries and electri-cal appliances too,” he says. “Now,malls are places to hang out andwatch movies, not make purchases.”

OLIVER FREDRICK

Madhurima Banerjee, 25, can nolonger fit all her purchases intothe cupboards and cabinets inher room. Slowly, they have creptonto the furniture; some now sit

on the corners of her bed.“I may survive without eating or

sleeping, but definitely not withoutshopping,” she says. Banerjee, a specialeducator, starts her day with a quick glance at the shopping websites book-marked on her computer, and ends theday with the “satisfying feeling” that more goodies will be delivered soon.

Over the past four months, Banerjee hasfound herself overshooting her monthly shopping budget of Rs 9,000, and now has a running account with her father. She saysit’s now natural for her to be penniless bythe third week of every month.

“I just wish Madhurima could restrictherself to things she actually needs,”says her father, Supriyo, an artist.

SUDATTA BHATTACHARJEE

‘FRIENDS CALL ME SHOPPERS STOP’

Shreya Badola, 25, buys about one thinga day, on average. “Earlier, I could shutmy laptop and disconnect, but now theseapps are on my phone and in my face allthe time,” says the marketing executive.

Badola has 10 shopping apps on herphone, downloaded over the past threeyears. She spends about 60% of her salaryon her online shopping — mainly shoes, clothes and accessories.

“When I had to go the mall, it was aneffort… getting there, walking around. Now,it’s all just a click away,” she says.

Badola, 25, now finds herself borrowingfrom her parents to take care of her “non-shopping expenses”.

“I sometimes wonder how I got into thissituation,” she says. “I don’t even like someof the things I’ve bought. My father says I should invest. I sometimes agree — but shop-ping makes me happy.”

RIDDHI DOSHI

BUYERS’REMORSELUCKNOW

KOLKATA MUMBAI

NOIDA

■ Vegetable Animalby GH Ghent,Lambeth CountryFair, London 2004,one of the selectionsfor the archive.

‘DON’T EVEN LIKESOME OF THE THINGSI’VE BOUGHT’

‘NO SPACE TO PUTALL THAT I BUY’

‘I’VE BOUGHT 70 PAIRS OF SHOES IN THREE YEARS’

SAMIR JANA/HT

BURHAANKINU/HT

278MILLION

37.5MILLION

10 MINUTES

Number ofInternet users inthe country, asof October 2014

Number of mobile internet users inIndia, as of October 2014

Average time the individualshopper spends on e-tailingportals every day

People from across rural and urbanIndia who shoppedonline in 2014

159MILLION

35%An estimated 35%

of online shoppers

now shop via

smartphone apps

10MILLION

People from

across rural and

urban India who

shopped online

in 2011

$4 bn Estimated worth of the online shopping market in India in 2014

28 - 30Average age of those buying apparel, shoes

and accessories online

45 - 50Average age of those buying high-value items

such as jewellery and furniture online

$1.5 bnEstimated worth of the online shopping market in India in 2013

(SOURCES: TELECOMREGULATORY AUTHORITYOF INDIA, INTERNET ANDMOBILE AUTHORITY OFINDIA, AND IMRBINTERNATIONAL WEBAUDIENCE MANAGEMENTPROJECT)

IMAGE:THINKSTOCK;HT GRAPHIC:SANJAY TAMBE

BUYING NOW

Advertising professional AanchalBhargava, 28, spends about 40% ofher salary online.

“The commute from Noida tomy Gurgaon office and back is

long and boring, so I surf on my phoneand laptop,” she says.

Bhargava admits that she doesn’tneed many of the things she buys — like more earrings or the 70 pairs of shoesshe has bought online over the pastthree years.

“I get drawn in by the variety ofpretty things available online and theconvenience of buying them,” she says. “I do feel like crap for having spent somuch, but I can’t stop. When I really

need something, I step out andbuy it. Shopping online is a feel-good thing.”

RIDDHI DOSHI