Retail Home Shopping
Consumers don’t need to venture outside of their front door to shop for home, personal, gifts and gardening items. There are 24 hour television channels dedicated solely to the home shopping audience. The internet also serves as an easy way to click a shopping basket full of items that, many times, are bought on a whim. In fact, some consumers fall victim to a compulsion to purchase items electronically or over the phone that they simply can’t afford. However, the retailers who have shipped the purchases in good faith should expect to be paid.
As with other types of collection, our specialist team employ an understanding approach when dealing with these individuals. We sort out a realistic repayment plan that works for both parties and the majority of the time it results in a positive outcome.
A new report from Money and Mental Health has shown that the ease and convenience of online shopping can offer a lifeline for many people experiencing mental health problems, especially in the context of lockdown restrictions.
However, it also warns that the design of retail websites is making it extremely difficult for people with poor mental health — many of whom struggle with common symptoms such as impulsivity, reduced concentration and low morale — to stay in control of online spending.
In particular, the report shows that easy access to ‘buy now pay later’ options and one-click purchasing, coupled with retailers’ use of pushy, personalised recommendations and notifications, is driving many people with poor mental health to spend more than they can afford online, and increasing their risk of financial harm.
- People who’ve experienced mental health problems in the past two years are twice as likely as the wider population to have spent more than they can afford online (29% compared to 12%), or to have purchased goods they don’t need (47% compared to 23%)
- And the pandemic has compounded these problems. A quarter of adults with recent mental health problems (26%) say they have struggled to stay in control of online spending during lockdown — amounting to 3 million people across the UK
- The report shows that the ever-present availability of ‘buy now pay later’ (BNPL) products is a particular problem — with over half of UK adults (56%) saying that BNPL services make it too easy to get into debt, and two in five (42%) of those with recent mental health problems saying that BNPL has been harder to resist since lockdown.
Money and Mental Health is calling for retailers to offer customers more tools to manage their spending, such as the choice to opt out of ‘buy now pay later’ options, or to add a ‘cooling off’ period to their account before making purchases.