For those who don’t know about BuyMeOnce- what can you tell us about it?
Tara Button
BuyMeOnce is an online platform which researches and sells the highest quality, longest lasting products on the planet. It’s not about luxury, we don’t care what the label is, it’s about true quality. What’s it made out of? How is it constructed? Will the company fix it? What are the reviews like? Essentially, we do all the research so you don’t have to.
You admit to spending more than you earned at one stage in your life- so how did you escape this habit?
I used to have a flat cluttered full of impulse-buys and thousands of pounds of credit card debt. It was coming up with BuyMeOnce that changed my spending completely. The epiphany that buying for life would save the environment and save me money changed my shopping habits. I now only buy things that I know I will use for years to come, this naturally made me more mindful and encouraged me to do much more research into what I was buying. So impulse spending went out the window.
What was your lightbulb moment that started the ball rolling on the website?
I was given a Le Creset cooking pot for my 30th birthday. It’s a beautiful heirloom which woke me up to how temporary and flimsy everything else I owned was. I loved the idea that I would never have to spend money on a pot again and went looking for a shop which sold the “le creuset of everything”. But it didn’t exist. When I started to think about how much better long-term buying must be for the environment) saving huge amounts of waste and carbon emissions) it suddenly felt like such a no brainer! This should exist, so I started to build it.
Did you already own any of the products on your site before starting out?
No, not at all, it made me realise how temporary all my buying choices had been up until then. The cheap toaster that doesn’t pop, the fast-fashion clothes that disintegrated after a few washes, the ikea furniture with fake wood peeling away from the corners.
Why do you think we have moved away from quality and have a ‘more is better’ attitude even if the quality is poor?
It’s a combination of the huge increase in marketing messages that are designed to keep us buying, keep us dissatisfied with what we have, and the fact that there has been a race to the bottom in prices by manufacturers. When a manufacturer makes a product cheaper by using shoddy materials they don’t tell us this but slowly over time products have lost their quality and longevity. We’re now used to a kettle breaking every 2 years, our shoes only lasting a few months and furniture becoming wobbly and scruffy way before our grandparents would have experienced.
The great news is that this is now changing, people can now see the wastefulness of fast fashion and throwaway culture. We need to speed up the shift and spread the word further, but it’s a major trend!
Some of the products featured on the site are quite expensive, so how can people justify spending so much more than they normally would at first?
High quality materials and design do tend to have a higher price because of what’s gone into making the item. For me, It’s about thinking about value over time. So for example, the average person in the UK buys 1.1 umbrellas a year. This might be a cheap 10 pound one, but over time it adds up to a lot if you’re constantly rebuying. Buying a lifetime guarantees umbrella can save you 500-600 pounds over your lifetime and that’s only one item in your life. If you invest in lots of long-term items you save thousands and are able to buy a much higher quality lifestyle, you have beautiful things that do their job really well, and the items hold their value so you can sell them if you need to too.
How can BuyMeOnce relate to a minimalist lifestyle?
Buying for the long term means that you naturally think more about what you need from the items in your life, what your true needs are. It is driven by a deeper part of yourself because you know you’re going to be investing in it. The opposite of this is mindless, impulsive consumption. Impulsive consumption is what 50% of our buying is and it feels good at the time, but it leaves us cluttered and in debt with a house full of things that “will do for now” or “okay because it was cheap” or “I have no idea why I bought that.” At BuyMeOnce we say, “don’t buy things you don’t need. When you do need something, buy once and buy well.” It’s the buying well that can be the tricky thing, which is where BuyMeOnce is useful because we’ve done all the heavy lifting by comparing all the brands for you.
What is your best advice for people who are looking to buy more mindfully?
Try to avoid as many marketing messages as possible so that you buy things on your own terms. Then take some time (maybe over a couple of weekends) to take a step back and research your own taste and your priorities. What colours, textures and styles are actually the most uplifting and flattering? Is your spending in line with what makes you truly happy? Happiness, all the experts agree, is about connection, so investing in products and experiences that allow connection (e.g. family bicycles) are much more likely to bring true happiness than an item that is just for yourself, or an item that is designed to make you feel superior or higher in status (such as a designer item which is worn as a status symbol).
Once you’ve identified items you truly need, look into the materials, construction, reviews ethics and warranty information to find the best product for the long-term. This is what we do at BuyMeOnce!
Of all the products on your site, which once do you get the most use out of at home?
The le creuset pot made me a meal just last night, my dualit toaster pops the best toast, my steel hob kettle makes me tea and sings too and my Tweezerman tweezers never miss a hair!. All get used consistently and are a joy because they never let me down and I know they probably never will.
What is next for you and BuyMeOnce?
BuyMeOnce’s mission is to change human behaviour from short-term throwaway buying to longer term, mindful buying. In order to do this on a global scale we need to become a household name so theres’s a lot of growing to do! We’ll be expanding our ranges of products, doing more physical pop-ups so we can meet people in the real world.
On a personal level I’ll be becoming a mother and I’m already enjoying thinking about the challenges of long term buying for children. I did quite a lot of research on this for my book, so I’m looking forward to putting it into practice.
