This is Why I’m Broke
I discovered a site called This is Why I’m Broke while watching a Youtube video about buying weird things. She had purchased a “NoPhone Air” which is exactly what it sounds like, a phone made out of air. I was mind blown by this because I did not want to believe that someone would spend $5.99 on an empty phone box.
I went on to the website to further investigate and the website name explains it all. This is Why I’m Broke offers hundreds of what I assume are gag gifts, but why would someone waste money on something so silly? I scrolled through the pages of products and I was amused by what I found; from funny items like personalized face doormats to a Sony 98 inch TV for $70,000. When clicking on the items I realized that it redirected me to other sites where I can follow through with my purchase. My first impression, based on the video, I assumed that sight would mostly be completely useless items that were a waste of money but I’m surprised to say that there are actual items on this site that I would consider buying. They have some beauty products that I would maybe try out but to be honest I’m not sure I would put any products on my skin because I’m not sure how reliable it is.
Pretty quickly into looking through the website I was getting flashbacks to freshman year in high school. There was an app called Wanelo, it was a big craze for a lot of the girls in my school. It was similar to Pinterest but allowed you to shop the items directly through the app. Like This is Why I’m Broke, Wanelo had extravagant items like hot tubs and tree houses but it also had a lot of clothes. I personally never knew someone that made a purchase from the site but it was definitely fun for a few months to see what kind of cool things are out there. One thing that makes this website stand out is that not everything is for sale; a lot of the big items like cars are just links to a website or Instagram post.
I began looking into how this site became so successful and I found an article that provides from background information on the company. This article says that This is Why I’m Broke got its start in 2011 and was created by Adam Freeman. This site is an affiliate site with Amazon which means it gets a percentage for directing customers to the Amazon to complete the purchase. The company can make up to $20,000 a month from Amazon alone. This is Why I’m Broke gets around 2,800,000 visits per month so there is a lot of traffic. Adam was able to take the Amazon affiliate program and turn it into a successful business that attracts many people because of the wow factor alone
