Every time I sit down in the food court at the mall, I see at least two or three girls showing their friends everything that they bought at the stores that day.
However, there's a new trend emerging online that takes this shopping day show-off to a new level: the haul video.
The idea is that people (a majority of which are younger females) record videos of themselves walking the audience through all of the purchases they made that day, along with commentary about fashion trends and the difficult choices they came across when out at the mall.
And with over 150,000 haul videos on YouTube getting tens (if not hundreds) of millions of views, this haul video craze shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Add in the fact that YouTube allows users to earn money through partnerships, with some of these haul "vloggers" (video bloggers) earning thousands of dollars a year, and it's clear that this has turned to a legitimate business for some women.
These partnerships show that retail marketers are seeing the huge opportunity with these videos, which are essentially positive product reviews (why would someone say something bad about something they just bought?) that are accessible to a large audience in their target demographic.
But despite the huge earning potential with these haul videos, I probably won't be one of the thousands who have uploaded videos of their mall purchases. Besides, I doubt anyone would want to hear about my food court choice or the awesome pretzel I bought that day.