Comment by kleiba
13 years ago
[...] the average U.S. consumer buys 68 pieces of clothing a year [...]
I'm speechless. Can that figure be true?
13 years ago
[...] the average U.S. consumer buys 68 pieces of clothing a year [...]
I'm speechless. Can that figure be true?
I imagine it depends on definitions. I bought a dozen pairs of socks in November; does that count as 12 pieces of clothing or 24 pieces of clothing? Do the hiking boots I bought count as clothing? And if a new parent is buying baby clothes, who is the consumer -- the parent or the baby?
The latter point is probably not as important since we're talking about averages anyway.
I would imagine boots do not count since we're talking about detergent here, although some shoes can be thrown into the washing machine.
There are three comments about socks now :-) But to get to 68 you'd still have to buy 34 pairs of socks. Even if you exchange some of them for shirts, pants and underwear, you'd need a pretty big sock drawer if you keep adding and adding every year...
The latter point is probably not as important since we're talking about averages anyway.
Well, unless you say that the baby isn't a "consumer", in which case your average is the same total number of items of clothing divided by a smaller number of consumers.
I throw away socks as soon as they get holes in, which is pretty frequent (I don't make any effort to take care of them, they're just socks). To replace them I buy a set of 5 pairs maybe three or four times a year. It doesn't seem completely implausible.
I have 3 kids (singleton+twins). If my kids are not counted as consumers, then I hit this number by mid-year point each year (and we do use donated clothing from friends). If you count my wife (we buy under the same cards), 130-ish would be about accurate aggregated.
If we are counting an 8 pack of socks as 16 items of clothing, for example, 68 seems a sensible number. Counted otherwise the number sounds dubiously high.
If you include socks. Individual socks.