Strategies in Psychology to Deter Impulsive Temptations - Tricks to Suppress Instant Shopping Urges Psychologically Speaking
By Nele Spandick
In the world of online shopping, impulse buys can quickly add up, leading to financial strain. To regain control over impulse buying and make more mindful purchasing decisions, consider the following psychology-based tips and strategies.
Pause and Reflect
Before making a purchase, take a moment to ask yourself if you truly need the item or if it duplicates something you already own. Consider your emotional state and whether the impulse is driven by feelings like boredom or loneliness.
Create Friction
Remove saved payment information from online stores to add a step before checkout. This extra effort encourages reflection and can prevent quick, unplanned purchases.
Set Spending Limits and Budgets
Allocate a specific budget for discretionary spending, which helps control how much you can impulsively buy. Tracking and limiting expenses supports more conscious buying decisions.
Question Price Offers Critically
Recognize marketing tricks such as “limited-time offers” or inflated original prices designed to create urgency and the fear of missing out (FOMO). Compare prices across sites before buying to avoid false bargains.
Delay Gratification
Give yourself a waiting period before finalizing a purchase, such as 24 hours, to cool down impulsive urges and reassess the need for the purchase.
Focus on Long-Term Goals
Keep your financial goals visible and remind yourself how impulse buys might conflict with those goals, helping you resist temptation.
Be Mindful of Emotional Triggers
Keep a spending journal to identify patterns and emotions that prompt impulse buys. Awareness helps you develop strategies to cope without shopping.
By combining these psychological strategies, you can regain control over impulse buying while shopping online, making choices that align better with your needs and budget.
Hans-Georg Haüsel, a psychologist and marketing expert, suggests a latency period to resist impulse buying, recommending waiting at least a day before purchasing a product. He explains that our regulatory prefrontal cortex often turns off when we see an attractive product, making it difficult to weigh the pros and cons.
Regularly clearing the cache in internet browsers and deleting ad preferences on social networks can help reduce the incentives for impulse buying. Irregular debits should be evaluated for necessity, such as 30 euros spent at a restaurant or 40 euros spent shopping every Saturday. The household budget should include monthly income (salary) and expenses (rent, electricity, internet, subscriptions).
Many social networks allow users to delete their ad preferences, which can help reduce the temptation to impulse buy. Unsubscribing from advertising newsletters from online shops can also help in this regard. Online shops often send advertising newsletters to encourage repeat purchases.
In conclusion, by understanding the psychological factors that drive impulse buying and implementing strategies to combat them, you can make more conscious purchasing decisions and improve your financial well-being.
- Recognizing that online shopping can lead to impulse buys, one ought to consider implementing the community policy of deleting ad preferences on social networks to reduce the incentives for such purchases.
- In the realm of employment policy, setting a personal budget for discretionary spending can help control impulse buys, promoting more mindful purchasing decisions and contributing to financial stability.
- For a healthier lifestyle, adopting a lifestyle policy that involves delaying gratification by waiting 24 hours before finalizing a purchase can help cool down impulsive urges and encourage more thoughtful buying decisions.
- In terms of fashion-and-beauty, home-and-garden, food-and-drink, or any other interest-based shopping, be aware of emotional triggers and keep a record of spending patterns in a journal to better understand what prompts impulse buys and develop strategies to cope without shopping.
- As part of personal-growth and education-and-self-development, paying close attention to relationships and travel, one can learn to evaluate price offers critically, comparing prices across sites before making a purchase to avoid falling for false bargains and maintain financial well-being.
