How to Resist the Urge to Indulge in Retail ‘Therapy’
“When I shop, the world gets better, and the world is better, but then it’s not, and I need to do it again.”
A quaint perfume bottle, a leather-bound pocket diary, a dainty silver tray, a hand sanitizer, a multi-functional desk organizer, a pair of flamboyant red shoes.
Can you see a common link between them? Well, they all belong to the category of products you are guilty of buying, but hardly ever using. And believe it or not, you had completely plausible reasons to buy them in the first place. But once purchased, all they offer is a quick, temporary bout of excitement and then they find themselves tucked away in the farthest nook of your closet.
Simply put, this growing tendency among people to spend thoughtlessly on rather useless goods to cause a temporary distraction from unpleasant circumstances is known as retail therapy.
And according to an Ebates survey, more than 96% of Americans admitted to indulging in retail therapy for mood enhancement.
How Retail Therapy Takes Over Your Mind
The idea of immediate gratification by buying something new is far too seductive to outweigh the rationality of the decision.
Each time you exercise the choice to buy something you like, the hormone responsible for giving you a high, i.e. dopamine, is released. Interestingly, dopamine levels in your brain surge just in the anticipation of acquiring an object of desire even before you consider whether to purchase it or not.
More often than not, we also pick up things that are on a ‘’Buy one, get one free’’ offer. Whether they’re shoes or shampoo, cereal or chinaware, you purchase things you don’t need if you’re not sure about how long the seemingly lucrative offer is going to run.
Getting more value from the same money appears to most of us as a way to save money without even trying — but that’s rarely the case.
At the time of making a purchase decision, you also exaggerate its utility by leaps and bounds. You convince yourself that you will consume all the groceries, wear all the dresses and use all the home decor items that you pick up.
Your actual experience might prove otherwise, but you continue to make this fallacy as long as it validates your current choices. As a species, human beings are afraid of exhausting our resources and hence the need to constantly stock up on things.
Moreover, psychological studies clearly establish that our ability to judge or reason is most impaired when experiencing emotions like happiness, thrill, and excitement. And that’s what retail companies thrive on.
There are summer sales, winter sales, autumn sales, spring sales, Thanksgiving sales, Black Friday sales, New Year’s sales, Diwali sales, Independence Day sales, and whatnot.
As soon as your mind registers an incentive to buy something at a price even slightly cheaper than usual, it slyly fools you into buying it, which more often than not, is either a product about to expire its shelf life or a non-performing variant of an otherwise popular product.
5 Ways to Resist the Urge to Make Compulsive Purchases
With all of that being said, how, then, can we resist the urge to spend our hard-earned money on things we simply don’t need? Here are five ways.
1. Plan a fixed budget for impulsive shopping
Indulging in impulsive shopping can definitely dent your finances, but there is certainly no harm in treating yourself with some retail therapy every once in a while.
Chalk out a fixed budget for each month that you can spend on these self-treats. This offers you the retail therapy you think you deserve without burning a hole in your pocket.
Unchecked shopping impulses, over a prolonged period of time, can easily take shape of an addiction which is clinically termed as ‘compulsive shopping disorder’. Avoid that by keeping your spending in check.
2. Declutter your phone
Thanks to an ever-expanding reach of AI services, e-commerce apps are constantly predicting your upcoming purchases. Before you even realize, a planned purchase of a hair shampoo can lead to an unplanned impulsive purchase of a hair conditioner you didn’t need in the first place.
If you wish to control your shopping urges, you must consciously delete unwanted shopping apps from your phone. Unsubscribe from e-mails that encourage you to shop for products you don’t need.
3. Identify emotional triggers
Some people splurge on luxurious goods after a breakup, while others do so right after their salary gets credited each time. Identify the emotional triggers that make you more susceptible to falling prey to boredom shopping.
Once you identify them, keep an alternate coping mechanism ready to deal with them. For example: If you notice that you get tempted to shop after a bad day, ensure that the next time it happens, you chat with a friend, go out for a walk, or whatever works best for you.
An alternative coping mechanism might do the job at least as good as mindless shopping does, if not better.
4. Give yourself a buffer time to make a more rational decision
If people are spending thoughtlessly on things they don’t need, then retailers are a big part of the phenomenon too. Companies deploy tricks based on basic human psychology to fool people into spending more.
The best way to guard yourself against these gimmicks is to give yourself a buffer time of about a few hours before you actually buy the product. Evaluate its worth rationally by comparing it against similar products and make sure you are making a well-informed decision.
5. Create alternate avenues for entertainment on your phone
Imagine you are sitting idly in a waiting room waiting for an appointment with someone. Just to kill that small chunk of time, you are mindlessly tapping on your phone. This moment has a lot of potential for you to be tricked into buying something that appears even remotely useful. You tap on the product, click on ‘buy’ and there you go. You just fell in the trap of boredom shopping.
In a world where the internet is all-pervading, it’s extremely difficult to keep yourself from some casual surfing on the go. So to avoid clicking on that e-commerce app on your phone, keep some worthwhile entertainment apps ready that come to your rescue in such moments of boredom.
Summing It Up
Impulsive shopping may bring a rush of excitement for a short while, but acquiring more stuff will never make us happier in life.
While you can rise to the bait sometimes, shopping impulses, if left completely unchecked, can become financially dangerous in the long term.
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