Title: What Motivates Impulse Buying? | Psychology Today
Headings: What Motivates Impulse Buying?
Ian Zimmerman Ph.D.
What Motivates Impulse Buying?
Personality, pleasure, and product connections can all lead to impulse buys.

Content: The impulse buyer may therefore buy as a way to look good in the eyes of others. Second, impulse buyers tend to experience more anxiety and difficulty controlling their emotions, which may make it harder to resist emotional urges to impulsively spend money. Third, impulse buyers tend to experience less happiness, and so may buy as a way to improve their mood. Last, impulse buyers are less likely to consider the consequences of their spending; they just want to have it. People who like to shop for fun are more likely to buy on impulse. We all want to experience pleasure, and it can be a lot of fun to go shopping and imagine owning the products we see. Once we start experiencing pleasure as a result of this sense of vicarious ownership, we’re more likely to buy those products so that we can continue to experience that pleasure. The concept of vicarious ownership is related to another impulse buying motivator, which is a connection between a consumer and a product. When we’re connected to a product, our minds essentially start acting like we already own the product, which makes it harder to go without buying it.