Fashion enthusiast or not, you’re likely familiar with the art of “unboxing” on social media. A creator will sit alone in front of their camera, hold unopened shipping packages up in front of their screen—often blurring their address with cute digital stickers—and proceed to record their live reaction as they sort through their goods. Yet, as algorithms change and engagement becomes harder to capture, creators must evolve strategies, and content formats must steadily transform with them.
So, what do hauls most often look like today? They include try-ons, product reviews, and audience prompts such as “Let me know in the comments what I should keep or return.” As unboxing videos continue to saturate the content market, creators must find new routes to stand out, whether that be egging on audiences (sometimes called “ragebaiting”) with absurd items or increasing the volume and price of purchases. In 2025, makeup creator Mikayla Nogueira posted a luxury haul sat in front numerous shopping bags from Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and more. The video went particularly viral prompting other creators to make videos estimating the six-figure price of the goods.
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According to the creator marketing data platform Traackr, in 2025, audience engagement on hauls and unboxings outperformed “Get Ready With Mes” (GRWMs), by 1.7x. However, that number was down from 2.5x in 2023, in part due to oversaturation. From 2023 to 2025, haul content grew 41 percent. By adding an activity (trying on) and an engaging prompt (“keep or return,”) creators are combining the junk food-like allure of hauls and the conversational nature of a GRWM, all while adding consumer power by letting audiences weigh in on the creator’s decisions. Fashion creator Vivian Li describes the “keep or return” prompt as a “known strategy” in the influencer community. “Honestly most of the time, the poster already knows what fits, what works, and what is worth the price,” she says.
In recent years, haul culture has been a proven factor in rising return rates. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), two-thirds of Gen-Z consumers admit to bending the truth when it comes to returns. Popular problematic behaviors include either purposefully overbuying sizes and colors or “staging,” a phenomenon where creators show off items solely for social media before returning them. It’s an ethical conundrum that compounds the already murky waters of haul videos. Standard hauls can promote overconsumption; hauls that create an illusion of consumption, but ultimately get returned, exacerbate fashion’s returns problem. In 2025, the NRF’s Retail Returns Landscape report found that an estimated 15.8 percent of purchases (approximately $849.9 billion) were expected to be returned by year end, with 9 percent of returns being fraudulent.
And if creators are buying items for the sake of engagement farming, are these videos — at a time when more of us rely on peer-to-peer reviews than ever — adding any actual value?
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Zoe Stewart, a stylist and fashion creator, explains that when she started consistently posting on TikTok, generic hauls were a huge part of her content and has since pivoted to try-on videos. In these, engagement is a conscious factor. “When I’m asking people for their feedback, it’s often not for a basic [piece], it’s for a crazier piece or something where candidly, I don’t know how this goes in my closet,” she says. Stylist Michelle Li echoes this sentiment. Try-on hauls aren’t her highest performing form of content, but are a semi-regular occurrence, and she describes the format as a “lower lift.” When she does post them, she knows what her audience is likely to engage with: “If it’s a buzzy brand or controversial, more people weigh in on whether they think it's worth the price based on the quality.”
All three creators voice consciousness against overconsumption, and not wanting to promote bad habits or unrealistic ideals; however, there are times when, for one reason or another, items do get returned after filming. Returns are a seemingly unavoidable byproduct of the very format that could be tempting, or easy, for others to take advantage of. On the other hand, luxury retailers like Net-a-Porter and TheRealReal often have excessive return policies as a safeguard against “staging” scams and “serial” return behavior.
TheRealReal, which is a popular subject of try-on fashion hauls, describes excessive returns on its website as returning 30 or more items, returning purchases over $10,000, or having an overall return rate as “over 85 percent.” Through these metrics, customers can receive “strikes” against their account, and in some cases, a total ban. Other retailers like ASOS have enacted policies which deduct small fees from the refunds of consumers with high overall return rates; likewise, suspicion of fraudulent activity can lead to a total account ban.
In contrast, Michelle describes an instance in which she returned a jacket to TheRealReal that she had already filmed, but upon reading the comments she had another change of heart. “I checked the video afterwards and all of the comments said I should keep the coat,” she explains. “So I went back and bought the coat and I'm so happy that I did.” In this way, the relationship between creator and consumer is symbiotic—growth, engagement, and community become one in the same. “That invitation for feedback doesn’t just build community, it drives growth,” says Cait Marron, Senior Vice President of creative strategy at Billion Dollar Boy.
Returns aside, brands aren’t blind to the advantages of high-engagement user generated content. In fact, Marron explains that there are times when they are leaning into it. She points to Addison Rae’s collaboration with Lucky Brand Jeans. The brand gifted creators—a common strategy often called “seeding.” “What brands increasingly understand is that for better or worse, creators will be honest,” she says. “In this case, some viewers loved the throwback Millennial aesthetic low-rise jeans, while others gave candid feedback on fit, like shorts running shorter than expected (even if advertised as short shorts). The mixed reactions can be helpful to quickly capture customer feedback for the brand, while also building credibility and driving engagement with the creator’s audience."
Where the creator forms a relationship with their audience, they inevitably also form an informal relationship with the brand, one that is often profitable to the creator. Stewart explains she utilizes affiliate links wherever she can. For readily available items from retailers like Zara, she links directly, for a vintage purchase from TheRealReal, she’ll link to similar vintage or second hand items—not unlike the product recommendations that built the trust and credibility of OG bloggers.
“That trust often translates into action,” says Marron. “When viewers see someone they relate to genuinely endorsing a product, it not only builds brand affinity but also drives intent, people want to know where they can buy it and how they can experience it for themselves.” Though returns are an inevitability of try-on hauls, conscious creators who have garnered trust with their audiences can potentially help reduce further returns—after watching a try-on and review, a consumer may have a better understanding of the garment and what it looks like on different body types, leading to a more informed purchase.
In an oversaturated marketplace, content will continue to evolve; however, some creators are again already feeling a shift. Stewart notes that her videos that receive the most negative feedback are now her “straight up” hauls, whereas hyper-specific unboxing videos where she compares the same product across different brands—for example, deciding which white T-shirt fits the best—are what engages her community the most.
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