For a modest fee you can have a box sent your door every month filled with stuff you don’t really need, but might really want.
While subscription box services’ appeal may be debatable, their success is not. Over the last couple of years these monthly subscription services have tapped into something in the American psyche and ballooned, providing a variety of tchotchkes for people of all tastes.
But is the stuff you get worth it? Omar Gallaga, Digital Savant of the Austin American-Statesman’s 512Tech says that after being a long-term subscriber to one of these boxes, he finally pulled the plug.
“For me it just started piling up, the clutter was getting out of hand,” Gallaga says. “I was giving away half of it. I was taking stuff to my office and (asking) ‘Does anybody want this?'”
At first, the appeal, for him, was the surprise.
“I was paying $20 a month to be delighted and surprised every month. Something would show up at my door, I didn’t know what it was going to be,” he says. “But after two years of that, it was like, okay, I get it, I’ve had enough.”
What you’ll hear in this segment:
– How the trend got started
– Why these subscriptions appeal to people
– How an industry has sprung up to support the logistics of these boxes
