Shopping Psychology

The thrill of finally being able to own a gadget, having been obsessed with it for a long time. The rise of e-commerce has put every merchandise just a click away.  Emotional attachment to owning things. Tempting offers like “steep” discounts, buy-now-pay-later campaigns, and aggressive advertisements ubiquitously placed to ensure the item promoted is seen by as many people as possible. 

The mushrooming of shopping malls selling all sorts of innovative as well as fancy items, including those that didn’t exist a while ago. The pleasant setting in malls is created to keep would-be shoppers there longer so that the time spent there translates into more money spent. The rise of credit cards, which enable a shopper to buy impulsively goods that have caught his/her attention. The proliferation of fast fashion, a business model of mass producing inexpensive items of clothing meant to be discarded after a few wears. 

Welcome to the age of shopping! Until recently, scarcity defined the history of mankind. People struggled and even paid a heavy price even for necessities. But all that underwent a radical shift around the turn of the 21st century, when an abundance of affordable finished products took over people’s lives. The fact that almost everyone seems to indulge himself/herself in shopping these days is a testament to consumerism running amok. Today, shopping involves much more than a monetary transaction of selling and buying goods; it has also evolved into an emotional experience. Countless people throng shopping malls to escape the struggles, stress, anxiety and boredom of daily living, albeit temporarily. This phenomenon is called retail therapy.

For almost every country around the world – rich and poor – consumer spending is a determinant of the health of its economy. Taxes levied on the products sold are a crucial source of revenue for governments worldwide. So the more the money is spent through shopping, the more money is available for government spending. This explains why governments, time and again, roll out measures to boost consumption.  

But here is the catch: for countless people, shopping has become addictive, shifting from an act of fulfilling necessity to fulfilling emotional needs rather than actual needs. This phenomenon, referred to as compulsive buying disorder (CBD), has trapped many people. Understanding the tricks of the trade retailers apply to get naïve people to shop continually is the key to staving off the dangers of this trap. Retailers manufacture “scarcity” by using psychological strategies like labelling “only two pieces left” or “limited edition” on products on sale, sending a sense of urgency across the prospective buyers, who, for fear of missing out, in turn rush to buy the product before it goes out of stock. What’s more, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has made it easier to lure customers with tailored recommendations.

The wasteful habit of unbridled shopping, driven by greed or emotional needs, not only takes a financial toll on individuals’ lives but also has a monumental environmental cost.  The landfills overflowing with discarded fast fashion clothes, toxic dyes and chemicals from their production contaminating water bodies, greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels burned for their production and transportation – all add to pollution and climate change. Realising this fact, it is high time we shopped consciously and only when we need a product. Doing this not only saves us a fortune in the long run but also helps us keep environment-degrading activities at bay.