The Shift Upstream: How Purchase is Replacing Use in the Consumer Experience

The gravity of the consumer experience is drifting upstream—towards the point of purchase and away from the richness of use, longevity, and endings. This shift is bad news for circularity. It promotes a culture of momentary highs, encourages emotional detachment from the products we buy, and distances us from the consequences of our consumption.

From Crescendo to Cold Start

Traditionally, the consumer journey built toward a climax: use, loyalty, wear, reuse, and eventually, renewal or retirement. But many brands are now treating purchase as the crescendo. The celebration comes at the beginning of usage. Think: The “fresh car smell”. The “out-of-box experience”. These have become the clichés of modern product development—brief, engineered highs that captured the best of product usage.

Platforms Rewire the Peak

Temu, Amazon, and Shein have gamified consumption to the point where buying is now the experience. Not owning. Not using. Not maintaining. The message is: shop like a billionaire, spend like it doesn’t matter, and feel good instantly. This emotional peak happens before the product even arrives. Behind the scenes, the actual mechanics of fulfilment remain slow and often disappointing. Temu, for example, says standard orders ship in 6–22 days, and express in 4–11 days. According to PCMag. But that doesn’t matter to the consumer. By the time the product arrives—late, undersized, low-quality—the emotional high has already passed. TikTok and Instagram are full of unboxing videos drenched in let-down. But the cycle continues.

Refund Without Return: The Ultimate Signal

Nothing encapsulates this upstream shift more than “Refund Without Return.” Disappointed? Keep it. Or don’t. Just don’t stop shopping. This policy sends a loud, implicit message: the experience was the act of buying. Not the item. Not its use. Not its disposal. The transaction is the memory, not the material.

Delivery as Theatre

Even delivery is now engineered for emotional effect. Drone drops, real-time tracking, and next-day shipping aren't just logistical conveniences—they are excitement engines. Every beep of the doorbell is a mini-celebration. Again, the moment of purchase becomes the climax. Everything else is an afterthought. Usage is now – disappointing, ill-fitting, poorly made, emotionally flat. Ownership becomes a burden. Maintenance becomes a chore. End-of-life isn’t even on the radar.

The end of the product's life—where value, responsibility, and memory used to reside—is increasingly a distant, invisible event.

Why This Hurts Circularity

Circularity depends on long-term thinking. On emotional connection. On responsibility. But when the peak happens before the product is even touched, what chance does the circular economy have?

Endings matter

They embed memory. They offer closure, reflection, and sometimes, renewal. A powerful ending can sustain brand loyalty more deeply than a flashy unboxing. First-time use only creates a moment. A meaningful ending creates a relationship.

A Culture of Abandonment

By pulling consumers away from the consequences of ownership, the system encourages emotional detachment from what we buy—and from what we waste. We are being nudged further from the material fall-out of our consumption. The burden of ownership is removed. The true cost of acquisition is distant. The high point of consumer experience is moving upstream. But maybe it’s time we bring it back down the river—toward endings, responsibility, and meaningful connection.

Let’s not let purchase be the only memory.

Let’s make the full lifecycle worth remembering.