Why Do We Shop for What We Do Not Need?

Consumer One who delights advertisers by acquiring unnecessary products in accordance with the motto I spend, therefore I am. The Cynics Dictionary every mountain make for things that they do not need. When asking a person why he needlessly goes obtain, a typical answer is because it makes me sense of smell good. In fact, there argon many reasons why people, particularly in America, feel compelled to shop, spend, and buy things in an almost mindless automation where the consumer rationalizes the heading of need. However, why do we shop for a twentieth pair of raiment? wherefore shop for another gadget that we might need?Why do people spend hours shopping for unaffordable stuff that is merely cut down? shop, apart from a practical need, is an emotional experience. This very real phenomenon is as serious as it is intriguing to those interested in this type of behavior. concord to Pamela Danziger, a consumer industry consultant, There is a desire to satisfy a need . . . that is the simple answer to a profoundly challenging principal (27). In clarifying the nitty-gritty of the word need in Danzigers assertion, it is serious to understand that this fundamental aspect pertains to an emotional need rather than a practical one.Further, to help answer this question of why people shop needlessly, marketing scientists who study shopper behavior define emotional need as motivators. With this understanding, the question can be addressed What motivates us to shop for what we do not need? * obtain is fun and exciting Perusing, trying-on, and trying- out(p) dazzling impertinently w ares at a pulsing metropolistic-wonderland of fashion departments is an ecstatic experience with its kind of excitement and adrenaline. Comparable to going to an amusement park, it is an occasion where there are people, places, and things to see, do, and . . buy. * Shopping is an escape Dr. Drew Pinsky, a coping strategies specialist at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena, Califor nia, professes, Shopping is a way of managing unpleasant feelings. standardized to attending a museum or a movie theater, shopping allows us to take our minds off our problems. Time heals and we can give ourselves ample time at the mall interacting with salespeople as if they are museum guides, or spending a few hours window-shopping as if we are watching it all on the liquid screen. Shopping allows us to feel like a credit Generally, whether we are shopping at a warehouse home improvement store, an uptown fashion mall, or the local car dealership, starry-eyed salespeople roll out the red carpet for prospective buyers. This is truly an available fantasy cosmos for an indulging shopper. As shoppers, we can walk into a showroom (as this is our celebrity privilege) greeted by our fans and receive all of the attention we deserve pampered and fussed over, our stardom is at hand.The preceding(prenominal) emotional motivators are well-founded characteristics of shoppers behavior per th e findings of extensive research by marketing academics. Gary Witt, Professor of Marketing at Western International University, attests, Shoppers do not want your product or service they want . . . a secret door to their hearts desires. This is now common knowledge among marketing strategists who pass water with advertisers to appeal to shoppers. In this way, we are incessantly subjected to marketing and advertising intentional to entice us to shop and buy.All people, even those with the most resistive of base psychological mechanisms regarding this behavior, are in some way influenced by the persistent, ubiquitous bombardment of various media and its message of commanding people to shop. In addition, shopping mediums such as catalogs, the internet, and The Home Shopping Network on cable television, intended to offer convenience allowing a devoid of the annoyances of stodgy shopping such as parking and disgruntled salespeople, are barely defeating to the communal shopper and the emotional experience a shopping trip provides.Shopping at home does not compare to the escalatored big-city, big-room department store with its buzzing energy and exciting glamour where a shopper is there seeing and world seen. This is the essence of modern shopping. As a an activity in and of itself, shopping is a relatively recent development in which masses of people venture out and seek to moddycoddle their desire to satisfy an emotional need. Shopping provides not just a means to the necessities of life, but a meaning for life. As cleverly promoted by marketing and advertising, shopping is a ethnic condition legitimized as the good life and the American way.