Amazon, Walmart, IKEA, you name it, the big stores have what you want with only the tap of a button. Is it good? Of course, it’s good! Who doesn’t love an easy online order right to your door with express shipping from Prime? Need a desk? Already on its way. Need a good knockoff Lululemon fit? You got it. It’s easy. But is that the problem?
The ease of ordering things has improved drastically from the time of 2010-present day. Something that would’ve taken 10 days to get to your door in 2010 can be there tomorrow now. Don’t get me wrong, there are many upsides to this ease, but let’s talk about impulse purchases.
Let’s be real here, TikTok had a society in a chokehold for many trends, styles and even hairdos over the last year, selling out brands faster than you could click on them due to over-ordering. But TikTok isn’t exactly the culprit. Impulse buying isn’t something the average consumer thinks about daily. With owning a cell phone these days comes ads left and right about things we should be interested in, and are we? Of course, we are. The problem isn’t the businesses or the ads or even the big corporations. The problem lies within yourself and the funds.
Now for me as a university student, I learned quickly that I had to budget my funds wisely or I would be homeless quickly. This is when the first realization of impulse purchases came to light for me. I would see a trend that I liked and order whatever it was immediately. By the time I got it, I was almost always over whatever the product was anyways and onto the next one.
It’s an addiction in a sense, to order something for yourself that you want and receive it. However, feeding that addiction is expensive and almost always never pays off.
What can you do to stop the impulse?
What I do is write down the product that I want to buy in my notes and attach a picture. I give myself 1 month to consider this product before I go ahead and purchase it. If I’m not interested in it anymore after a month, then I won’t buy it. Simple as that.
If you don’t think that will work for you, try little things like going to try it on in a store (if it’s an article of clothing) or read the reviews section and note what people are saying, you could even leave the tab open on the search engine of your choice and go back to it every so often to see if it’s still living up to the initial hype it had the first time you saw it. Another way to help is to make a list of things you need to purchase within the next year, (i.e., a new mattress, a desk, a house, etc) with the costs of those items beside it, and then a list of things you want in the same way and that may open your eyes to the need versus want of the situation. If the want outweighs the need, then go ahead and buy it.
Ultimately, I can’t stop you from buying whatever you want to buy, nor will I try to. But if you’re reading this and agreeing with some of what I said, maybe try to stop the impulse and save a little for some needs instead of wants this year.