What devices do you remorse shopping for?

By Rachel Carlyle | Published – 2 Feb 2026

In my kitchen, there’s a cabinet whose solely helpful inhabitant is the stopcock. That apart, it’s an elephants’ graveyard of long-forgotten devices: a pasta maker (used thrice), an ice-cream maker (used as soon as), a VR headset (nonetheless in its field), plus a remote-control helicopter that traumatised the cat on its first and solely outing.

I’m not alone in having what shopper consultants name “buyer’s regret”: a Saga colleague makes use of his bread maker as a cookbook shelf, for instance.

In our survey of 1,459 prospects, 65% mentioned that they had skilled “gadget regret” – a 3rd have felt it prior to now yr. Half mentioned they’d introduced it on themselves by shopping for the mentioned merchandise; 16% got it as a present.

The prime regretted merchandise was the spiralizer – bear in mind these? They flip greens into spaghetti-like strands whereas additionally begging the query: why would anybody trouble? Clearly, not a lot of you’ve: 62% of Saga prospects regretted proudly owning theirs.

Close behind, maybe extra surprisingly, was the digital image body, regretted by 52% of its house owners. In third place was the pasta maker (45%), adopted by the ice-cream maker (42%), VR headsets (35%), bread maker (31%), internet-connected train gear (31%) and the robotic vacuum (29%).

“We’ve all been there – the promise of a shiny new purchase, and you get home just to be disappointed when it doesn’t quite deliver,” says Lisa Barber, tech knowledgeable at shopper organisation Which?. But what makes one new gadget a waste of house and one other indispensable (solely 10% of Saga prospects regretted shopping for an air fryer)?

“While some products – robot vacuums, for example – are great in theory, they are not a magic bullet,” Barber explains. “So, anyone thinking they can ditch the non-robot model may feel a twinge of disappointment when they realise that robot vacs continue to struggle with corners in our tests.”

Many devices that we remorse also can solely do one factor. And did we actually want that factor finished anyway? Our respondents agreed. Common remorse causes weren’t utilizing the gadget as a lot as anticipated (58%), realising it wasn’t wanted (50%), it not working as anticipated (42%) and problem in setting it up/utilizing it (27%).

Saga prospects are typically pretty cautious about new tech. Half (49%) are fairly uncertain and take so much to commit; 9% by no means purchase any new devices; and 36% often anticipate individuals they know to purchase it first. Only 6% are determined to get their fingers on the most recent “must-have”.

I’m not alone with my cabinet of regrets: 46% hold undesirable devices – often for years. Only 15% promote them, 14% throw them away and 19% move them on after a yr or two.

Consumer knowledgeable Dr Benedetta Crisafulli at Birkbeck Business School, University of London, explains: “We may experience regret today but this can turn over time into sadness about getting rid of the item, maybe even helplessness because you don’t know what to do with it. Perhaps as time passes, we feel we will be incurring another financial loss in giving it away for free, so the easiest shortcut is to simply leave it there.”

So, what would be the spiralizer of tomorrow? Barber believes it’s good home equipment: “I don’t understand why so many manufacturers are building smart capabilities into things like washing machines – I just can’t see why I’d want to control my machine from my phone.”

That’s one regretted buy that gained’t slot in my elephants’ graveyard cabinet.

(Hero picture credit score: Getty)