Who hasn’t given in to retail temptation from time to time? Very few people, in fact. According to a recent survey from personal finance comparison site Finder.com, 88.6 percent of Americans admit to buying things impulsively online.
You might have anticipated that near-unanimous response on the subject, but exactly how much time and money consumers are spending on a whim may surprise you: 64 percent of impulsive online shoppers make spontaneous purchases at least once a month, with 22.1 percent making it a weekly habit. And with each online shopping session, Americans spend an average $81.75 on unplanned purchases, which equates to a total $17.8 billion, according to Finder.com.
And it could get worse. “We predict that [impulse shopping online] will increase because online retailers really make it easier to purchase things quicker than ever before,” says Jennifer McDermott, Finder.com’s consumer advocate. “You can just click and buy something with one button now.”
[See: 12 Ways to Be a More Mindful Spender.]
Roger Dooley, marketing expert and author of “Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing,” points to online megastore Amazon as the prime example of how convenient online shopping is getting. “The opportunity to impulse buy online is really enormous,” he says. “[At Amazon,] they’ve got their one-click ordering, free shipping, they tell you exactly when it’s going to be there, and in some cases it’s the same day or the next day without an additional charge. So they make impulse buying really easy.”
Of course, an easier shopping experience isn’t all bad. When you know what you need, you want to get it via the simplest process possible. “It’s only bad if you end up regretting your decision,” Dooley says.
Unfortunately, according to Finder.com’s survey, many impulsive online purchases (44.5 percent) lead to feelings of regret. Even worse, 18.9 percent of respondents end up without enough funds for more important costs, including rent, school fees, loan repayments or other necessities. And 10.1 percent of unplanned purchases result in fights with a spouse or family member — yikes. (On the bright side, 42.5 percent of impulse buys are followed by contentment.)
[See: 10 Money Leaks to Shut Down Now.]
How can you combat the urge to splurge? By becoming a fully conscious consumer.
“Retailers have mastered the psychology of the impulse purchase, and they’re pulling all of our strings,” says consumer psychologist Kit Yarrow, author of “Decoding the New Consumer Mind.” “So I think the first step to conquering that is just recognizing that you have to have blinders on at all times. Just keep reminding yourself that it’s your money, it’s your life, that you’re in control.”
One of the major trade tricks you need to stay cognizant of is the lure of the sale. Retailers throw deals at you with the threat of limited-time offers and limited quantities available. With that emphasis on scarcity, they instill in their target audience the fear of missing out, or FOMO. “That’s our No. 1 impetus for purchasing impulsively,” Yarrow says.
Indeed, 52.5 percent of respondents to Finder.com’s survey say that the main trigger for spending impulsively is FOMO. The next most popular reason reported by 36.5 percent of respondents is having no good reason not to make the purchase.
A simple way to dodge a sense of FOMO is to keep yourself ignorant of any offers. For example, if your inbox is constantly bombarded by emails alerting you to can’t-miss sales, just click unsubscribe. After all, what you can’t see can’t tempt you. “We are constantly putting ourselves in the face of having to say no, and it’s really much, much easier if we don’t have to make a decision at all,” Yarrow says. “You’ll make better decisions if you just don’t even put yourself in the path of temptation.”
What about the advertisements you can’t opt out of, including those that follow you on social media and other sites? Again, the best way to stop yourself from impulsively spending is to stay aware while shopping and really think about what you’re doing.
“Before you click that button, try and back away for just a moment,” Dooley says. “Look at it from a more dispassionate standpoint. [Ask yourself,] ‘Is this the kind of thing I’d wear? Where would I wear this?’ That can cause you to reevaluate the decision and maybe not make a bad one.”
Finder.com recently released a tool designed to help you take that pause. Icebox is a Google Chrome extension that replaces the purchase button on popular retailers’ sites, including Amazon, eBay and Etsy, with one that says, “Put it on ice.” Clicking on that sends the item to an “icebox” for the amount of time you specify, up to 30 days.
“The thinking behind it was we wanted people to really consider their purchases a little more,” McDermott says. “Having it be so easy now to make a quick purchase, and people getting a bit regretful about those, we wanted to just put a little step in place that makes people think about their purchases more.”
Slowing down the purchasing process can certainly be helpful, but Yarrow doubts such a tool would really be effective against FOMO. “That would work tremendously well for planned shopping,” she says. “But [with FOMO] usually there’s a time pressure that’s associated with it, and that’s why it works. I don’t imagine shoppers whose vulnerability is FOMO using that effectively.”
[See: How to Live on $13,000 a Year.]
Another feature of Finder.com’s Icebox might be more helpful. It’s a counter that tracks the total cost of all the items you put on ice. If you decide not to purchase an item, Icebox adds that cost to a tally of your savings. “It’s really easy, if you’re shopping at a few different sites, to not really think about it as a total,” McDermott says. With Icebox’s tracking tool, “at the end of the month, you can see you’ve saved, say, $400 by just thinking about your purchases a little more.”
Seeing the actual dollar amount can give you good reason to curb your impulse shopping and overcome your FOMO. After all, you can surely think of better ways to spend that money if you give yourself the time.
“People are ruled when they’re shopping in some ways by the fear that they’re going to lose the opportunity to get a bargain or just get something,” Yarrow says. “What we want is for people to focus on the gain rather than the loss. People make better decisions that way.”
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How to Be a More Conscious Consumer originally appeared on usnews.com
