Addicted to Shopping: When You Don’t Know When to Stop

Abstract

Shopping generally refers to the act of buying products. Sometimes this is done to obtain necessities such as food or clothing; sometimes it is done as a recreational activity. To many, shopping is considered a recreational and diversional activity in which one visits a variety of stores with a premeditated intent to purchase a product.

Recreational shopping often involves window shopping (just looking, not buying) and browsing and does not always result in a purchase. "Window Shopping" is an activity that shoppers engage in by browsing shops with no intent to purchase, possibly just to pass the time between other activities, or to plan a later purchase.

To some, shopping is a task of inconvenience and vexation. Shoppers sometimes go though great lengths to wait in long lines to buy popular products as typically observed with early adopter shoppers and holiday shoppers.

More recently compulsive shopping has been started to be recognized as an addiction. Also referred as shopping addiction, "Shopaholism" or formally oniomania, these shoppers have an impulsive uncontrollable urge to shop.

Keywords: Shopping, Compulsive Shopping, Oniomania, Addiction, Shopaholicism, Compulsive Shopping, Retail Therapy