Groupbuys: How American-Martian Colonists Keep American Consumerism Alive

By Chris Hernandez
Published May 28, 2026

Consumerism has been a core part of American culture since the early 1900s, with the Industrial Revolution enabling mass production and consumption of goods. Today, Americans live in a world where virtually anything they need, be it essentials like groceries or luxuries like smartphones, is available right at their fingertips through online orders. As Americans moved to Mars, they had to consider how to continue their consumerist lifestyle.

Cue the groupbuy. Consider the high cost of shipping goods to Mars from the Earth; unless someone was ordering enough to fill up an entire rocket, it simply wouldn’t be worth it. So, what if people split the cost instead? That’s how a groupbuy works: a group of people pool together their purchases, splitting the cost of shipping by having everything shipped on a single ship. At that point, the cost of shipping a single small item goes from the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to charter a rocket to tens of dollars to reserve a small part of a rocket.

E-commerce companies are cashing in on Martian colonists’ desire for goods, with some even organizing groupbuys for Martians automatically. This streamlining of Martian online purchases has helped to continue the American tradition of mass consumption of goods by allowing Martians to buy things just like they would at home. They might need to wait for a few months before their package arrives, but nothing could replace the joy that they feel when it finally appears at their doorstep.

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