Do we really need clothes delivered in under an hour? Target’s Uber Eats deal is convenience culture gone wild | Maggie Zhou

In a move nobody outside of boardrooms asked for, Target has become the first fashion retailer in Australia to make its products available to order via the Uber Eats app as of September. This means that a “curated” selection of 25,000 of Target’s products can arrive at your door in under an hour, thanks to Uber Eats’ “on-demand” delivery.

It follows Bunnings’ introduction to the platform in February, and Kmart appears to be following suit with Uber delivery available on some eligible orders. Big W has also joined in on the action, with more than 35,000 Big W “essentials” (their words, not mine) now ready to be delivered to your home in 60 minutes via DoorDash.

You can buy women’s heels, fashion jewellery, pyjamas and men’s suits, jocks and Christmas merch. You can buy homewares, baby goods, accessories, toys and beauty products, too. This sits side-by-side with Uber Eats’ main offerings of, well, things you can eat.

Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Sunday morning Each year, the average Australian buys 56 new clothing items and sends 23kg of textile to waste. Instead of being cherished, passed down and respected, clothes are increasingly seen as disposable.

Garments displayed next to your weekly grocery shop or hangover order is the most explicit and unabashed pronouncement of this. Uber Eats is known for being a platform for perishable items. How much time does it take to scoff down a burger or wipe clean a container of pad thai?

The time lag between ordering a meal and having its packaging hit your rubbish bin is ridiculously brief. I wonder whether items bought from Target through Uber Eats will be treated any differently. Much of its fashion offerings are everyday pieces, such as underwear and activewear, items people most likely have at home already.

So why the need for almost instantaneous delivery? Ostensibly because of a lack of planning – perhaps for a last-minute sleepover, swim or hike. What happened to good old-fashioned problem-solving? Turn your knickers inside out, borrow someone else’s bathers, make do with what you’re wearing, be OK with getting a bit clammy.

This Target alliance does a disservice to Uber’s longstanding partnership with Red Cross. For the past eight years, Uber has run a one-day clothing drive with the charity, providing free courier pick-ups for Australians to donate their own pre-loved clothes. Just two hours into this year’s day, an estimated 27,200kg of clothing had already been donated.

I picture truckloads of clothing being shuttled between shops and homes, and homes and shops. I’m not negating the helpfulness of delivery services, particularly for those who might be disabled, time-poor or who live rurally. Online delivery is vital for connecting so many to goods and services they need (though it’s worth noting this service is rolling out from Target’s “high-demand” locations).

The speed of this “on-demand” delivery is what’s worrying for me. How urgent is something you didn’t need until an hour ago? Do you really need a “clear can” storage or “mini terracotta pots” or a “Minecraft Overworld arcade air hockey set” delivered to you by someone carrying only a handful of other orders?

This latest tech retail partnership is a timely reminder of our dependence on convenience. Having whatever we want, wherever and whenever we want, has become a given, with delivery apps at our beck and call. We can have our cake and eat it too (your driver will drop it off in seven minutes).

I’m certain we’re all capable of turning into a little Veruca Salt – that spoiled, vexing kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Tech companies know we have this squirming, petulant child inside of us and are set on catering to our basest desires: “Daddy, I want another pony!” We’ve made it so easy to line the pockets of these retail and tech conglomerates; we’re happy to pay their service fees and don’t mind that the delivery window is actually closer to 90 minutes in some regions.

It’s now so easy to buy whatever we want that we keep forgetting to ask ourselves if we actually wanted it in the first place. Maggie Zhou is a Melbourne-based writer, fashion sustainability advocate and the co-host of the Culture Club podcast