If shopping is an addiction, then Black Friday deals are the gateway drug.
But there’s a reason those can’t-miss sales are so enticing to the 132 million Americans who are expected to shop tomorrow and Cyber Monday — and, spoiler, it has nothing to do with the impressive markdowns.
In fact, it’s dopamine, experts tell Yahoo News.
The so-called happy hormone provides a rush of pleasure when you do something that makes you feel good — like, say, snagging a winter sweater for half-off.
“It’s like playing a game and winning,” therapist LaNail R. Plummer, CEO of Onyx Therapy Group, told the outlet.
Black Friday, then, is akin to winning big in Vegas.
“Shopping is not a rational process. If it were, we’d buy strictly what we need,” Pennsylvania-based psychologist Pauline Wallin told Yahoo News.
“Instead, we generally purchase what we want, and justify it afterwards.”
But sale-centric holidays are especially dreadful for emotional shoppers — who often reach for their wallet and head to the mall or browse online when they feel particularly down — because of the crash following the dopamine high.
One 46-year-old woman, who opted to go by the pseudonym Susie, told The Independent that she spent hundreds of dollars after an old beau didn’t reply to her messages for “a few days,” and once purchased a costly jacket to impress a new friend.
“My husband always knows when something is wrong with me because of how many Amazon packages have arrived that week,” she told the outlet.
A Lending Tree survey of 2,000 Americans found that 69% of respondents allowed emotions to rule their spending habits, prompting over-spending and feelings of regret.
Experts say shoppers may feel guilt after going over budget, further fueling the cycle of sadness, spending, and more sadness in the aftermath.
But fear not, there are some expert-recommended ways to curb impulse shopping to save both your sanity and your wallet.
First, ask yourself if you really need everything in your cart. If you wouldn’t buy it full price, maybe you don’t need it.
“There’s actually a cost to owning stuff that you don’t need,” Wallin said. “It takes up space and gets in the way. Once you’ve owned it for a while, your thrill of procuring the item will fade, eclipsed by annoyance at having to store it and move it.”
And, experts warned, don’t fall for competitive marketing, like adverts that boast sales are for a “limited time” or certain items that are “almost gone.” Scarcity enthralls customers, tricking them into buying things they don’t really need — “girl math” be damned.
“Thus, if something is on sale for only a limited time, and if we anticipate that it might enhance our lives in some way, we feel a sense of urgency to get it now, rather than ‘lose money’ by paying more for it later,” Wallin said.
Similarly, buy-one-get-one sales are largely a scam, merely offering half-off each item purchased — the word “free,” however, “is more compelling,” she added.
Experts also recommended making lists and budgets to avoid going overworking your credit card.
Taking a break while shopping to go over what’s been piled into your cart will also help you decide if something is a necessary purchase or just an impulse.
Experts tell Yahoo News that the dopamine spikes when the shopper decides to purchase something, not when the card is swiped, so reassess your potential purchases before getting in the checkout line.