Are Hoarders Reshaping Our Consumer Culture?

Is it possible that one day in the not-too-distant future, retail stores will simply cease to exist? Their replacements: estate buyers, liquidators, and collectible dealers. And, of course, millions and millions of ordinary homeowners in Nassau County, NY and around the world who spend their Saturday mornings hawking secondhand goods from their yards and garages.

In its most extreme variety, hoarding is classified as a disorder by the International Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder Foundation. It’s estimated that approximately 2-4 percent of the U.S. population suffers from this condition, which results in the accumulation of vast amounts of goods that the hoarder doesn’t need.
But just because there’s a clinical variation doesn’t mean that hoarding isn’t the great American pastime.

So many of us continue to go on buying stuff we simply don’t need – so much stuff that an astonishing one in 11 households were renting storage space in 2007. Meanwhile, the retail industry struggles to recover from a series of economic crises, with numerous big-name chains succumbing to a consumer culture focused on belt-tightening.

Wander into an estate sale and discover just about every kind of item you would be able to find at vastly higher retail prices – from books to light fixtures to appliances, media and designer clothing, kitchenware, sports equipment. And that’s not even taking into account the fine furniture, art, and collectibles that people specifically seek out from estate buyers and liquidators.

On the other end of the resale spectrum, Nassau County residents looking to pick up dorm-quality furniture, perfectly good DVDs and books, working electronics, and a huge variety of household goods can spend a morning shopping the rounds at neighborhood yard sales and find everything they need for under 50 bucks. Then there are storage unit auctions, at which the contents of unpaid storage facilities go up for grabs to the highest bidder. In short, for the average consumer looking to pick up quality goods cheaply and easily, there is no end of available outlets.

We’re a society swimming in stuff. It’s got to go somewhere, and as the culture shifts towards a reuse/repurpose/recycle standard, it seems logical to assume that we’re headed toward a tipping point when it comes to buying goods. Of course, retail stores won’t disappear entirely – not as long as there are newer model gadgets to be acquired, enjoyed – and ultimately resold. The luxury market, too, commands a particular niche that can never be rivaled by the most exclusive estate buyers. Nonetheless, there may come a time when the Nassau County, NY retail market bows to the resale market, if only to even out the surplus of goods relative to a dwindling demand.