Are you an impulse buyer? Here’s how to stop!
If you’ve been drawn into the online shopping vortex, lured by countdown sales and urgent clearance specials, chances are you’ve made an impulse purchase. You’ve probably experienced “the guilts” after giving the credit card a belting at the local shopping centre, but at what point does the odd impulse buy become a serious problem? Let us take a closer look.
Why do we do it? In the fast-paced world of internet shopping and same-day delivery, 24-hour sales and one-off offers, Paypass and Paypal, our needs and wants can be instantly gratified. The increasing need for instant gratification is the main contributing factor to making an impulse purchase, along with an inability to control emotion. This lack of impulse control seems to disrupt normal decision-making processes in consumers’ brains.
There are also targeted marketing campaigns: those sneaky ads that aim for those who easily succumb to making quick and uninformed decisions. Marketers cleverly utilise tools with a lot of hype and sizzle to entice an emotional rather than a rational response to the purchase. Not surprisingly, sale events are also designed to cause a frenzy of impulse buying. The chaotic environment of a sale can lead to a lack of personal control, which can result in a wardrobe full of unworn clothes. Sound familiar?
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What happens when it becomes a serious problem? While it’s easy to joke about impulse buying, it can become addictive, causing serious problems. Impulse buyers can run up huge debts and compromise relationships with others. Their behaviour can lead to lowered levels of confidence and self-control and heightened levels of depression and anxiety.
So, how does one put a lid on it? Luckily, there are steps that can be taken to curb the urge to buy impulsively. These include:
- Setting a budget before you shop.
- Leaving credit cards at home and only taking a certain amount of cash with you to the shops.
- Learning to slow down and take time to consider purchases.
- Seeing a psychologist to develop a set of behavioural and attitudinal techniques involving a) awareness, b) acceptance and c) action. This involves gaining awareness into why you buy impulsively, accepting this is a problem and then taking action to develop good impulse control strategies.
Whether it’s a real problem or just an occasional brain snap, there’s no harm in learning a little self-control, especially leading into the many seasonal sales there are each year. Your wallet will thank you for it.
If you have impulse-happy shopping buddies, it can be easy to let them convince you that all the outfits you just tried on look great, and you should definitely buy them. If you want to shop socially, do it with people who also have frugal spending habits.
You should also keep a list of things you justifiably want or need. That way, if you do see them on sale, you can buy them with confidence.
Related links:
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