Showing posts with label Psychology of shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Psychology of shopping. Show all posts
5/15/14
Labels:
Clutter
,
Decorating
,
frugality
,
Op shops
,
Psychology of shopping
,
Saving money
,
Thrifting
Until next time!
Read More
The Secret Reason We Buy Too Much Stuff
 |
| (Picture: Jerry Bakewell) |
There are many reasons why we indulge in retail therapy, but
one of them isn’t mentioned very often. It’s so obvious we
don’t even think about it.
Sometimes we buy things just because we have the space for
them.
This realisation struck me when I moved house recently (when
they say it’s the most stressful thing you can do, they’re not kidding!). I
moved from a huge art deco apartment to a decent-sized two-bedroom flat with one
less room.
I’d already given away a lot of stuff before I moved but was
amazed at what I still had.
The most surprising thing was that I had quietly amassed a collection of thrift store pictures over the almost ten years I’d been in the
apartment. I had a total of more than thirty pictures altogether! This is
without any conscious collecting on my part – just a desire to fill the empty
spaces on the large walls.
The irony is that there are very few picture hooks at this
new place, and I am reluctant to ask the landlord if I can put them up at this early stage in the
tenancy. So the majority of these pictures are going to have to go – I’m
intending to sell some of the better ones on eBay.
Having amassed all these pictures has taught me a lesson in
restraint. I did get very skilled at picking pictures with future potential –
the more kitsch the better – and was proud of the way I arranged them in my
apartment. And I will keep some of them at the new place, and rotate them on the
few picture hooks I have so I don’t get bored.
But nothing is forever, and I will let the majority go with
grace.
I know now there is always a new picture around the corner.
Only a week ago I found myself staring longingly at a large, abstract print in
an op shop in the inner city suburb of Port Melbourne. I knew I didn’t
have room for it. When enough pictures are sold, perhaps I will let myself buy
one or two new ones.
So next time you're about to buy some little knick-knack or a piece of furniture it’s worth
asking yourself the question: am I buying this just to fill space?
Perhaps there is just one thing you buy too much of, because
you’ve started a collection – collections have a tendency to constantly demand
that they be added to!
If you tend to do this, next time you could rethink
whether you really need the item. If it still ‘calls’ to you, is there
something you already have that you could get rid of?
Another question it's worth asking when you’re buying a piece of decor: is there something else the money could be used for, like a great experience or a
large savings goal?
1/30/14
Labels:
Bargains
,
Bricks-and-mortar stores
,
Deprivation
,
Emotions
,
Letting go
,
Melbourne
,
Older people
,
Popular culture
,
Psychology of shopping
,
Sales
Until next time!
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Store Loss and Disenfranchised Grief
I stood with my head pressed against the glass. Behind it, a
thoroughly empty shop, long and narrow. The bald fact of it: walls, carpet,
back door. Everything else – the shelves, the posters, the old counter at the
back with its pale pink curtain into the inner sanctum that held the DVDs – all
gone. The closing down signs still mocking the windows, a picture of
understatement.
How absurd, to get upset about a video store closing! How
old was I? Well, it was early January, which is always a disorientating time
for me. And this was a local video store, not a franchise, owned by a sweet
family headed by a short, white-haired middle-aged woman who always treated me
with kindness and courtesy. This family were already installed in the store
when I started to use it after returning, ten years ago, to live in the nearby
suburb where I grew up.
It was a damn good video store, with plenty of stock to
choose from. It charged only $3 for new releases, obviously an attempt to
compete with the DVD vending machines that had become a fixture at supermarkets
in recent years.
It had no pretensions to being an arty place aimed at
cinephiles – I used to think how much more it could do to capitalise on the
hordes of students in the area – but the owner had realised, she told me once,
that keeping a back catalogue of videos rather than selling most of them off was
good for the business, tiding it over whenever the crop of new releases was particularly
disappointing.
My angst came from several sources. I hadn’t had the chance
to say goodbye and thanks for being real, and independent, and genuinely
friendly. Mixed in with this was the frustration of human curiosity – I’d
missed the inside story. I’ll never know whether the owner had simply had
enough and was retiring with a nice little nest egg, or, much more likely, was
a victim of the switch to vending machines along with the rise of Quickflix and
internet streaming – and perhaps rising store rents.
But it wasn’t just the owner I’d lost the chance to say
goodbye to. It was the shop itself, its familiar layout, the time I used to
spend painstakingly choosing my five weeklys for only $6.50. I’ve used those
DVD vending machines, but it’s just not the same. Going out to choose a video is
still a treat for me, and having a machine dispensing it takes all the fun away.
The small losses of daily life
As we get older, familiar places seem to become more important. There is so much change, and yet another small adjustment can sometimes seem like a blow.
As we get older, familiar places seem to become more important. There is so much change, and yet another small adjustment can sometimes seem like a blow.
Gerontologist Professor Kenneth Doka has an expression for
the sense of loss that we have trouble letting go of because our grief is not
socially sanctioned – he calls it disenfranchised grieving.
Such losses are often large but they can also be small ones.
Life is full of them – every new stage we enter results in the shedding of old
routines, places and companions – but modern life changes so fast that we may
be in a state of constant adjustment, never having the chance to find our feet
until the next earth tremor of change.
 |
| Pic: Grove Arcade bookstore, by Joel Kramer |
Shops are commercial ventures, but the ones we visit regularly become part of our psychic maps, our mental touchstones. I hadn’t expected to feel bereft when the Borders store at my local shopping mall closed. This occurred when the entire Australian arm of the business went into receivership in 2011. All over Melbourne Borders stores were holding closing down sales and I joined the swarms of bargain hunters combing the fast-emptying shelves for books going for a couple of dollars.
I wasn’t prepared for the sense of loss once the Chadstone Borders at closed. I knew that it was a heartless multinational, had read somewhere that workers in its US stores were so poorly paid they had to get second jobs to survive. Nevertheless there was something profoundly civilising about all those books in my local shopping mall. I’ve always fetishised books and it was the sheer number at the Borders store with its two floors that captivated me.
Still, losses have their consolations. About a year ago a new independent bookstore moved into Chadstone, with genre labels that look a bit home made, and a refusal to grant the kinds of massive discounts that stores like Borders and Dymocks have relied on. It’s a new branch of the independent chain Robinsons Books, and seems so far to be well patronised – long may it reign!
Have you ever experienced a sense of unexpected loss when a familiar store closed down?
Until next time!
1/29/12
Labels:
frugality
,
Leisure shopping
,
Mindfulness
,
Psychology of shopping
,
Saving money
,
Secondhand goods
The latest edition of The Inspired Shopper is now available! If you haven't bought it already, this is a great time to buy. You can buy it cheaply and easily on the Amazon website. At only $2.99 it's an absolute steal. I'll keep it at this price for the time being, but I may put it back to its original price, $5.99, in the future.
If ethical shopping, decluttering, thrifting and saving money are the theory, then Inspired Shopping is the practice. Whatever the changes you want to make to the way you buy, they start with a willingness to slow down and listen to yourself, and an openness to the unexpected. This mindset is what Inspired Shopping can help you achieve.
This brand new edition contains more advice for conscious shoppers than ever before. It fully incorporates the smartphone and internet as part of Inspired Shopping. There's more information on making the shift to ethical shopping and ethical fashion on a budget, and loads of up-to-the-minute resources for thrifty, frugal and fair shopping. There's also commonsense advice on:
saving money
decluttering
knowing your consumer rights
shopping safely on the internet
giving inspired gifts
buying an appliance, car and even a house
supermarket shopping
shopping with children, friends and your partner
shopping for those with 'too much' money.
If you've bought earlier editions of The Inspired Shopper, I'm happy to send you a mobi file (ie suitable for the Kindle) of the latest version. Just drop me a line at caetem@yahoo.com and I'll explain how to provide verification.
Not quite sure but intrigued? Here's some more info about what's in the book and how to buy it.
Until next time!
Read More
Fully Updated Edition of The Inspired Shopper Now Available!
The latest edition of The Inspired Shopper is now available! If you haven't bought it already, this is a great time to buy. You can buy it cheaply and easily on the Amazon website. At only $2.99 it's an absolute steal. I'll keep it at this price for the time being, but I may put it back to its original price, $5.99, in the future.
If ethical shopping, decluttering, thrifting and saving money are the theory, then Inspired Shopping is the practice. Whatever the changes you want to make to the way you buy, they start with a willingness to slow down and listen to yourself, and an openness to the unexpected. This mindset is what Inspired Shopping can help you achieve.
This brand new edition contains more advice for conscious shoppers than ever before. It fully incorporates the smartphone and internet as part of Inspired Shopping. There's more information on making the shift to ethical shopping and ethical fashion on a budget, and loads of up-to-the-minute resources for thrifty, frugal and fair shopping. There's also commonsense advice on:
saving money
decluttering
knowing your consumer rights
shopping safely on the internet
giving inspired gifts
buying an appliance, car and even a house
supermarket shopping
shopping with children, friends and your partner
shopping for those with 'too much' money.
If you've bought earlier editions of The Inspired Shopper, I'm happy to send you a mobi file (ie suitable for the Kindle) of the latest version. Just drop me a line at caetem@yahoo.com and I'll explain how to provide verification.
Not quite sure but intrigued? Here's some more info about what's in the book and how to buy it.
Until next time!
12/3/11
Labels:
Bricks-and-mortar stores
,
Christmas
,
Decision making
,
Emotions
,
Intuition
,
Psychology of shopping
,
Relinquishing
At this time of year, as holiday shopping swings into gear, you’re under more pressure to buy than ever before.
Advertising companies have long employed psychologists to advise them on the emotions and thoughts that unconsciously govern the behaviour of consumers.
But their knowledge of what triggers consumer behaviour is becoming more and more sophisticated. The burgeoning science of neuromarketing uses scanning to measure changes in brain activity and physical responses to discover what parts of the brain are involved in the decision to buy. Brands and stores are making use of this knowledge to influence your behaviour in ways you’re probably not aware of.
With the smartphone revolution, marketing in the form of discount offers has never been more intimate and in-your-face. Even when the discount is genuine, the question is: do you really need and want the product? Or are you just buying it because your buttons are being pressed?
A free app that looks out for you
The news isn't all bad. The fact is, you already have an amazing 'app' that counteracts the marketing messages. It's called your intuition, it's totally free, and it's at your disposal 24 hours a day. And better still, you don't need a smartphone to use it, although it does help! (Not really – I’m just being silly.)
Many people aren't clear as to what intuition really is or whether they have it. Some scientists routinely confuse it with emotions, and therefore warn that you can't always trust your intuition. However, other scientists are starting to take notice. One writer, Paul Bernstein, describes it thus:
Shopping can produce a whole spectrum of emotions, or simply strengthen feelings you already have. You might feel irritated, sad, depressed, excited, confident, triumphant, disappointed, apprehensive, anxious, fearful or even self-hating.
Your rational mind can help you by finding and processing practical information about the products you’re planning to buy. You can also use it to help talk yourself out of a bad buy, but you may sometimes use it to rationalise buying something you don't need.
How to use your shopping app
Practise mindful shopping. Slow down. Breathe. Go ‘home’ to yourself. Be aware of your body in space, the feel of your feet walking, your arms swinging. Make calming self-statements. Remember there are plenty of goods, enough time, and plenty to go around.
Focus on the experience of shopping and not just the outcome. Stay in the moment. Be nice to the hardworking retail staff. Practise not shoving aside other shoppers. Stay aware of your perceptions.
Build a secure base from which your app can operate. Intuition and rational thinking aren’t usually opposed (although sometimes intuition can trump rational thinking). It really helps to have a structure so you know roughly how much you can spend, and what you want to buy in the short, medium and long term. Research big-ticket items before you buy them and use intuition to make the final decision. Create a budget and keep track of what you’ve allocated to different areas. Create a Priority List of goods you want (and presents you intend to give). Do these tasks mindfully, and remember both your budget and Priority List can be flexible and dynamic – you are allowed to change your mind!
Let go of outcomes. Practise ‘negative capability’. Try to accept that, however much you plan, your internal shopping app may have its own plans. It’s great to be organised, but try to let go of the outcome of your shopping expedition. Be open to accidental finds, and to the possibility that you may not come home with what you set out to get.
Get to know how your shopping app works. A great way to find out how your intuition operates is to find something you’re almost sure you want to buy. If you’ve decided it’s within your budget and done any necessary research, decide to mentally give it up. Put it back on the shelf, walk away from it, walk out of the store if you need to. If you're online, navigate away from the page by opening another tab, or take the item out of your shopping cart. Mentally tell yourself you are letting it go and see what your gut feeling tells you. If there is a very strong protest at a gut level, approach the item for a second time and see what happens.
Use your shopping app for all aspects of the shopping process. Use it to decide how you will shop, where you will shop and for how long. Use your app to decide if it’s worth going into individual stores. Listen to your app if it guides you to new ways of shopping, eg ethical and sustainable Christmas and holiday gifts, shopping with small retailers instead of big box stores, charity-based gifts, thrifting.
Use your app to help you avoid going with the herd. Be aware of the energies of others, and mentally separate them from your own. Remember they have their own agendas, and you’re biologically wired to want to follow your fellow creatures. But your internal shopping app can help you override this urge and only buy what’s right for you.
Use setbacks to become a more effective shopper. If you have an unpleasant shopping experience, use it as feedback to get to know yourself better. What are your triggers for overspending? What times of the day are best for you to shop? Could you set some limits on your online shopping? Remember, every shopping expedition can make you a more aware and effective shopper if you’re open to the lessons.
Until next time!
Read More
A Free 'Shopping App' to Guide You Through the Christmas Maze
At this time of year, as holiday shopping swings into gear, you’re under more pressure to buy than ever before.
- Advertisers tell you to spend up on your family and friends to show how much you love them.
- Stores lure you in with tempting displays, subtle aromas, scarily good-looking staff and special offers.
- Brands evoke strong moods, emotions and character traits that make you crave their products.
- Christmas hype and preparation can make you feel confused, depressed, tired and emotionally overloaded.
- You add to the mix by heaping guilt on yourself for not being a good enough parent or friend.
- Your smartphone sends you constant inducements to enter stores, pick up merchandise, and take advantage of time-limited discounts.
Advertising companies have long employed psychologists to advise them on the emotions and thoughts that unconsciously govern the behaviour of consumers.
But their knowledge of what triggers consumer behaviour is becoming more and more sophisticated. The burgeoning science of neuromarketing uses scanning to measure changes in brain activity and physical responses to discover what parts of the brain are involved in the decision to buy. Brands and stores are making use of this knowledge to influence your behaviour in ways you’re probably not aware of.
With the smartphone revolution, marketing in the form of discount offers has never been more intimate and in-your-face. Even when the discount is genuine, the question is: do you really need and want the product? Or are you just buying it because your buttons are being pressed?
A free app that looks out for you
The news isn't all bad. The fact is, you already have an amazing 'app' that counteracts the marketing messages. It's called your intuition, it's totally free, and it's at your disposal 24 hours a day. And better still, you don't need a smartphone to use it, although it does help! (Not really – I’m just being silly.)
Many people aren't clear as to what intuition really is or whether they have it. Some scientists routinely confuse it with emotions, and therefore warn that you can't always trust your intuition. However, other scientists are starting to take notice. One writer, Paul Bernstein, describes it thus:
The appearance of accurate information in the mind of an individual ... which can be shown to have come not through the five senses, nor through a rearrangement of the individual's stored memory contents.
When we shop, we have access to a number of sources of information about what we truly need: our rational mind, our emotions and our intuition, or gut feeling. Our bodies also give us information, such as telling us we’re tired or hungry.
Shopping can produce a whole spectrum of emotions, or simply strengthen feelings you already have. You might feel irritated, sad, depressed, excited, confident, triumphant, disappointed, apprehensive, anxious, fearful or even self-hating.
Your rational mind can help you by finding and processing practical information about the products you’re planning to buy. You can also use it to help talk yourself out of a bad buy, but you may sometimes use it to rationalise buying something you don't need.
Underneath all the hoopla of what’s going on for us is a steady stream of inner wisdom. It always has our best interests at heart, and a better understanding of our financial situation than our conscious selves. It’s there all the time, and all we need to do to access it is slow down a bit and take the time to tune in.
How to use your shopping app
Practise mindful shopping. Slow down. Breathe. Go ‘home’ to yourself. Be aware of your body in space, the feel of your feet walking, your arms swinging. Make calming self-statements. Remember there are plenty of goods, enough time, and plenty to go around.
Focus on the experience of shopping and not just the outcome. Stay in the moment. Be nice to the hardworking retail staff. Practise not shoving aside other shoppers. Stay aware of your perceptions.
Get to know how emotions affect you when you shop. Emotions and intuition aren’t always in tune. Discover how your emotions work by going on a shopping expedition where you simply browse. Note how you react to finding goods you love. What happens to your body and brain when you contemplate a Gucci handbag or a pair of Italian loafers? How does feeling tired affect your emotional state, eg do you suddenly feel an urge to buy products you would ordinarily dismiss? Do you lose the plot if you shop for more than two hours? Use this information to help you plan your shopping so as to manage your emotions and minimise the negative ones.
Build a secure base from which your app can operate. Intuition and rational thinking aren’t usually opposed (although sometimes intuition can trump rational thinking). It really helps to have a structure so you know roughly how much you can spend, and what you want to buy in the short, medium and long term. Research big-ticket items before you buy them and use intuition to make the final decision. Create a budget and keep track of what you’ve allocated to different areas. Create a Priority List of goods you want (and presents you intend to give). Do these tasks mindfully, and remember both your budget and Priority List can be flexible and dynamic – you are allowed to change your mind!
Let go of outcomes. Practise ‘negative capability’. Try to accept that, however much you plan, your internal shopping app may have its own plans. It’s great to be organised, but try to let go of the outcome of your shopping expedition. Be open to accidental finds, and to the possibility that you may not come home with what you set out to get.
Get to know how your shopping app works. A great way to find out how your intuition operates is to find something you’re almost sure you want to buy. If you’ve decided it’s within your budget and done any necessary research, decide to mentally give it up. Put it back on the shelf, walk away from it, walk out of the store if you need to. If you're online, navigate away from the page by opening another tab, or take the item out of your shopping cart. Mentally tell yourself you are letting it go and see what your gut feeling tells you. If there is a very strong protest at a gut level, approach the item for a second time and see what happens.
Use your shopping app for all aspects of the shopping process. Use it to decide how you will shop, where you will shop and for how long. Use your app to decide if it’s worth going into individual stores. Listen to your app if it guides you to new ways of shopping, eg ethical and sustainable Christmas and holiday gifts, shopping with small retailers instead of big box stores, charity-based gifts, thrifting.
Use your app to help you avoid going with the herd. Be aware of the energies of others, and mentally separate them from your own. Remember they have their own agendas, and you’re biologically wired to want to follow your fellow creatures. But your internal shopping app can help you override this urge and only buy what’s right for you.
Use setbacks to become a more effective shopper. If you have an unpleasant shopping experience, use it as feedback to get to know yourself better. What are your triggers for overspending? What times of the day are best for you to shop? Could you set some limits on your online shopping? Remember, every shopping expedition can make you a more aware and effective shopper if you’re open to the lessons.
Until next time!
If you enjoyed this blog entry, you might also like Steps to Take Before You Buy a Big-Ticket Item and How to Distinguish Between a Good and Bad Impulse Buy.
11/3/11
Labels:
Bricks-and-mortar stores
,
Deprivation
,
Emotions
,
Leisure shopping
,
Psychology of shopping
If you’re serious about reducing the number of things you buy, a good way to start is to look at your underlying motivations. They’re probably more complex than you realise! Below are some of the main reasons why we shop. Being aware of these motivations can reduce their hold on you, and put you on the road to more conscious shopping. Which of them apply to you?
Status
Independence and power
But this led to a paradox. For Minahan and Beverland’s shoppers, feeling powerful sometimes hinged on being able to afford a specific item; these shoppers felt compelled to buy another, equally expensive item if what they really wanted wasn’t available.
There’s nothing wrong with a desire to demonstrate financial independence. But wanting to feel powerful can lead to powerlessness if you feel compelled to buy. Men may feel a similar kind of pressure: the need to demonstrate their financial success and masculinity by producing their wallets and spending up big at call.
Branding is reaching ever deeper into our psyches: increasingly, it’s also about our identities, activities, interactions, and even our self-esteem. A 2010 study found that not only did certain brands have appealing ‘personalities’, but that the positive traits associated with those brands could rub off on consumers. In other words, some of us actually feel that we adopt more appealing personalities when we use a particular brand!
The internet has only increased the trend of self-expression through buying. It’s dead easy to download an exclusive recording of your favourite progressive rock band’s latest offering, buy anything you need in the way of freshwater-fishing tackle, or order your preferred style from a huge variety of designer nappy/diaper bags.
Wide aisles make it easier to look at and examine the goods. Evocative scents trigger positive memories that we then associate with the store’s brand. Some stores boast dramatic, architect-designed interiors that create a powerful statement about the brand.
Mirror neurons are a specific type of brain cell that enables feelings of empathy when we watch someone else perform an action. Mirror neurons are the reason why, despite vowing and declaring you would never buy a pair of harem pants when they started appearing in fashion magazines, one day you suddenly found yourself at the checkout of an upmarket department store, grasping a black satin pair of – harem pants.
The internet provides bargains all year round. This represents a potential danger if you want to save money: the capacity to snag a bargain becomes almost infinite, no longer limited by time of year or your ability to visit particular stores.
In fact, underlying the retail high some of us seek is often a general sense of deprivation. We all experienced loss as children; memories of these early experiences can resurface whenever we crave material objects. The losses of the present produce additional wounds while they reawaken old ones. And according to writer Oliver James, the world we live in encourages us to believe that objects can supply non-material things that we may not have, such as ‘love, or a better character or higher self-esteem’.
Feelings of deprivation are part of being human and they’ll come back after the shopping fix is over. Once you can acknowledge these needs they will have less power over you, and will be less likely to impinge on your purse and your time.
Collecting
According to neuroscientist Gregory Berns, dopamine is produced in the brain when we see something new or unexpected – that’s an important part of the shopping high many of us experience. But while dopamine fuels the desire to buy, actually finding and anticipating buying the item is what matters in the production of dopamine. There are plenty of no-cost and low-cost ways of satisfying the thirst for novelty in your shopping life.
Until next time!
Read More
Why Do We Buy? Twelve Hidden Motivations for Your Shopping Behaviour
If you’re serious about reducing the number of things you buy, a good way to start is to look at your underlying motivations. They’re probably more complex than you realise! Below are some of the main reasons why we shop. Being aware of these motivations can reduce their hold on you, and put you on the road to more conscious shopping. Which of them apply to you?
Status
Humans have always used material goods to advertise high social status. Many of us are more than willing to buy things that have a higher price tag simply to tell the world how wealthy we are. In some cases, the extra quality is in the packaging only. And marketers and advertisers are constantly encouraging us to believe we’re entitled to spend up big. We’re as good as the next person, so why can’t we have those sleek Italian ankle boots or the latest Audi?
These days, status isn’t just about luxury goods. Many of us (me included) inadvertently use material goods to tell people how with-it we are, how hip and original, or even how green.
Independence and power
In 2006, Stella Minahan and Michael Beverland conducted a landmark study on why and how Australian women shopped in retail stores. They discovered that many women enjoy the feeling of mastery that they get from being able to afford certain goods.
But this led to a paradox. For Minahan and Beverland’s shoppers, feeling powerful sometimes hinged on being able to afford a specific item; these shoppers felt compelled to buy another, equally expensive item if what they really wanted wasn’t available.
There’s nothing wrong with a desire to demonstrate financial independence. But wanting to feel powerful can lead to powerlessness if you feel compelled to buy. Men may feel a similar kind of pressure: the need to demonstrate their financial success and masculinity by producing their wallets and spending up big at call.
Brands have symbolic meaning and emotional appeal: we experience certain feelings, access happy memories, or affirm our values simply by buying a particular brand. And we advertise our spending power and good taste by wearing or using goods of a luxury brand.
Branding is reaching ever deeper into our psyches: increasingly, it’s also about our identities, activities, interactions, and even our self-esteem. A 2010 study found that not only did certain brands have appealing ‘personalities’, but that the positive traits associated with those brands could rub off on consumers. In other words, some of us actually feel that we adopt more appealing personalities when we use a particular brand!
Because we’re so inundated with choice these days, brand loyalty can seem like a convenient shortcut for decision making: ‘I trust this brand – I’ll try the company’s new anti-ageing moisturiser / wireless headphones / hiking boots’.
Urban geographer Jim Pooler suggests that these days ‘we shop to self-actualise’. Minahan and Beverland’s research found that one of the main reasons that women shop is to express themselves and their identity. Social theorists Jane Pavitt believes that we create our identities, our very selves, through the goods we buy: we often ask the question ‘Is that me?’ before forking out for a piece of clothing, choosing a restaurant or planning a holiday.
The internet has only increased the trend of self-expression through buying. It’s dead easy to download an exclusive recording of your favourite progressive rock band’s latest offering, buy anything you need in the way of freshwater-fishing tackle, or order your preferred style from a huge variety of designer nappy/diaper bags.
Retailers know that the longer we’re in a shop the more likely we are to buy. The lighting, music, smells, signage, display fixtures, colour scheme and layout all work synergistically to create an inviting ambience that encourages us to hang around and inspect the merchandise. Even the staff are chosen for their attractiveness.
Wide aisles make it easier to look at and examine the goods. Evocative scents trigger positive memories that we then associate with the store’s brand. Some stores boast dramatic, architect-designed interiors that create a powerful statement about the brand.
Some researchers claim that the shopping centre has taken the place of other social spaces such as churches and public squares. Many women love nothing more than hitting their favourite shopping zone with a group of close friends and a credit card in tow. And some shoppers relish casual chitchat with sales staff and the acknowledgement they receive from stores they shop at regularly.
Neuromarketers such as Martin Lindstrom have found that we are strongly motivated by the desire to buy the items we see other people using or wearing. This tendency is the reason why some items become fads, taking off in an irrational way until they’re popping up everywhere. According to Lindstrom, it’s all due to the fact that our brains contain what he terms mirror neurons.
Mirror neurons are a specific type of brain cell that enables feelings of empathy when we watch someone else perform an action. Mirror neurons are the reason why, despite vowing and declaring you would never buy a pair of harem pants when they started appearing in fashion magazines, one day you suddenly found yourself at the checkout of an upmarket department store, grasping a black satin pair of – harem pants.
Many of us shop to reward ourselves, to give ourselves a pat on the back for all our hard work. We even reward ourselves for doing mundane shopping like grocery shopping! Simply being aware that you do this can help you to distinguish between useful and wasteful rewards. One option is to set aside a set amount of reward money for a specific period of time. Alternatively, if you want to stop or cut down on buying expensive rewards, give yourself treats that aren’t necessarily related to shopping.
The satisfaction of snagging a red-hot bargain is a major motivation behind the urge to shop. In Australia, Boxing Day sales get more chaotic each year as people clamour for the hottest deals. In the USA, frenetic crowds storm stores on Black Friday, and websites are inundated on Cyber Monday and Green Monday.
The internet provides bargains all year round. This represents a potential danger if you want to save money: the capacity to snag a bargain becomes almost infinite, no longer limited by time of year or your ability to visit particular stores.
Finding a bargain can fuel the production of dopamine that gives us a shopping high. It can swell your self-esteem, give you a sense of power, and reassure you that you’re a skilled shopper.
Desire – the gap between what we already have and what we crave – is the basis of consumerism. We decide that we need a product or item and go out looking for it. This desire can turn to frustration and annoyance if we don’t get what we want.
In fact, underlying the retail high some of us seek is often a general sense of deprivation. We all experienced loss as children; memories of these early experiences can resurface whenever we crave material objects. The losses of the present produce additional wounds while they reawaken old ones. And according to writer Oliver James, the world we live in encourages us to believe that objects can supply non-material things that we may not have, such as ‘love, or a better character or higher self-esteem’.
Feelings of deprivation are part of being human and they’ll come back after the shopping fix is over. Once you can acknowledge these needs they will have less power over you, and will be less likely to impinge on your purse and your time.
Collecting
There is a bit of the collector in most of us, I suspect. Collecting is a tricky area, standing perilously close to both hoarding and shopping addiction, with all the disastrous consequences of these habits. If your collecting impacts badly on your life, financially, space-wise or otherwise, it could be in danger of turning into hoarding. If you think you may be a hoarder, seek professional help.
The human thirst for novelty is one of the main reasons we pound the pavement or sidewalk, or trawl the web, desperately in search of something fresh and different. We get sick of our doona (duvet) covers, lounge furniture, crockery, clothes, cars and mobile phones, even if they’re still in perfectly good condition. But some of the need for novelty can be satisfied without having to actually buy.
According to neuroscientist Gregory Berns, dopamine is produced in the brain when we see something new or unexpected – that’s an important part of the shopping high many of us experience. But while dopamine fuels the desire to buy, actually finding and anticipating buying the item is what matters in the production of dopamine. There are plenty of no-cost and low-cost ways of satisfying the thirst for novelty in your shopping life.
Until next time!
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like In with the Old and Out with the New: Shopping and the Search for Perfection.
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