Category: Shopping

According to the American Psychological Association, 15 million Americans are shopping addicts. According to Dr. April Benson, a psychologist and author of To Buy or Not to Buy, “Research suggests the internet is a really fertile ground for the development and maintenance of compulsive buying disorder.” Flash sales, which often last 24 to 72 hours,… Continue reading Anatomy of an Online Flash Sale Addict

The Atlantic is renown for the quality of their reportage. This article, using clickable links, pulls together information from various recent studies. Brian Fung looks into the issue of whether one can be “addicted” to shopping. He notes the similarity between drug addicts and shopping addicts while each is involved in their addictions. Both groups… Continue reading “Addicted” to Shopping?

Writer Dominique Jackson believes it’s time to take the illness of compulsive shopping seriously. She writes, “…oniomania, to give it its scientific name, is as potentially devastating for the individual and their families as alcoholism, compulsive gambling or other addictions.…” The problem has been noted for over 100 years, but has only recently begun to… Continue reading It Is Time To Treat The Shopaholic Like Any Other Addict

The revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), may be adding a new category: “behavioral addiction.” Behavioral addictions may include addictions to video games, sex, and shopping, and these newly defined additions may impact insurance coverage. Author John R. Ehrenfeld notes this “…is a timely recognition of a deep cultural problem and one… Continue reading Shopper’s Addiction Now Almost "Official"

We are all familiar with the popularized image of the shopaholic. Think Isla Fisher in the 2009 hit movie, “Confessions of a Shopaholic.”  But growing research shows that the bag-laden fashionista is not the only one struggling to kick the habit.  For many people, the word shopaholic conjures images of a colorfully-dressed, designer bag-laden young… Continue reading Men are Coming Out of the Shopping Closet!

Download Jill Chiver’s free report, here: 12 Keys to Conscious Shopping Enjoy! Carrie RattleCarrie Rattle is a Principal at BehavioralCents.com, a website for women focused on mind and money behaviors. She has worked in the financial services industry for 20+ years and hopes to inspire women to better prepare themselves for financial independence. Read More

A friend or family member is overshopping and this behavior is having serious negative consequences. Maybe you know what a deep financial hole this person has gotten into. Maybe you see the negative effect this behavior is having on important relationships or on the person’s work life or mental health. What can a friend or… Continue reading Shopping Support Buddies

More and more clearly, a troubling picture of online auction addiction is emerging. While there are no hard numbers yet, the anecdotal evidence is pretty compelling. And we shouldn’t be surprised. Already a decade ago, the alarm was sounding: in 1999, Elizabeth Weise wrote in USA Today, “Take the thrill of gambling, the excitement of… Continue reading Yet Another Shopping Pitfall: Online Auction Addiction

While women Internet buyers may be outnumbered by men shopping online, new research suggests that many of the women who do shop in cyberspace are compulsive buyers. Further, as compared with female shoppers with low compulsive buying tendencies, female consumers with high compulsive buying tendencies actually prefer shopping and buying online over traditional “bricks and… Continue reading A Magnet for Female Compulsive Buyers?

Less in the Pink Than You Might Think No, it’s not that the rate of internet shopping has fallen off. It’s that in cyberspace, women, who in the popular imagination make up the vast majority of shoppers, are substantially outnumbered—and substantially outspent—by men. Reviewing the latest PayPal data from the United Kingdom, Charlotte Cowell notes… Continue reading Gender and Internet Shopping