how to avoid impulse purchases no.1
the how to guides
Photo credit: Cam Morin Unsplash
how to avoid impulse purchases
Have you ever been to the supermarket without a list and come home with not only more than you intended to buy, but you also seem to have forgotten the one thing you really needed? Maybe you went with a list and still found that other things arrived in your trolley without being previously specified? Perhaps you have been led astray by a cake, flowers, a chocolate bar, or a bottle of wine, and find that item makes its way home, unsolicited?
If you can honestly say no to any of the above, then I applaud you, however, for the rest of us, this scenario can play out weekly, or just occasionally, depending on your individual circumstances. When you think about your clothes and accessories, does the same basic pattern apply? You go out to lunch with a friend and just pop into a lovely little shop and just have to have X, and with the expansion of clothing lines in supermarkets, does the weekly shop mean a detour through the clothing aisles before you get to the vegetable section?
There are some simple ways to limit your exposure to the lure of the impulse purchase. For your weekly groceries, online shopping works well for some. However, when it comes to buying clothes online, having almost endless choice can often lead to an increase in random buying instead of curbing that tendency.
While online shopping may be very convenient and give you instant satisfaction, it can also use a phenomenal amount of resources, especially when the items invariably don’t fit or are not what you were expecting, and need to be returned. When you send things back, not only does that come with an additional cost to you, more often than not, these items are never returned to the sales area. The costs of unpacking, checking, re-packaging and tagging, re-listing, and then transporting your unwanted item, means that in many situations it just isn’t cost effective for the business to put it back into the system.
There are a few simple steps that I will expand upon in future posts and that you can use to help to avoid the urge to buy on impulse. See if any of these ideas might work for you, or resonate with your thinking:
Get some clarity and know what you have already.
Lists are not just for grocery shopping, or Christmas.
Make sure you make the effort to look good when you go shopping.
Stop before you buy, and ask yourself why.
Not all impulses are ill advised.
Continues in No.2…
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