Coffee shop and takeaway coffees are often one of the first things you are told to cut down on when trying to save money. But it turns out the price of a coffee isn’t the only way coffee can drain your wallet; a new study finds that consuming caffeine before shopping can actually make you spend more!
How caffeine influences your buying behaviour
A recent 2022 study published in the Journal of Marketing revealed that people who consume a caffeinated drink before or while shopping are more likely to spend more money. Shoppers who drank a cup of complimentary caffeinated coffee prior to roaming the stores spent about 50% more money and bought nearly 30% more items than shoppers who drank decaf or water.
But what is it about caffeine that makes us spend more?
The lead author, Dipayan Biswas, the Frank Harvey Endowed Professor of Marketing at USFOne explained the impact of caffeine further: “Caffeine, as a powerful stimulant, releases dopamine in the brain, which excites the mind and the body. This leads to a higher energetic state, which in turn enhances impulsivity and decreases self-control. As a result, caffeine intake leads to shopping impulsivity in terms of a higher number of items purchased and greater spending.”
Caffeine makes you spend more by encouraging impulse purchases
Interestingly, drinking caffeine also appears to influence the types of items shoppers buy. Shoppers who drank caffeine bought more non-essential items (such as candles or fragrances) than others. However, caffeine seemed to have little impact when it came to making more utilitarian purchases (such as kitchen utensils or storage baskets).
The researchers also conducted an experiment testing the impact of caffeine on online shopping. Again, people drinking caffeine chose more “impulsive” or “high hedonic” items (such as a massager) from the list of options while others tended to choose more practical goods (like a notebook).
How to avoid impulse purchases
While moderate amounts of caffeine consumption have positive health benefits, caffeine can also have unintended negative financial consequences regarding spending. Hence, avoiding caffeinated beverages before shopping might be helpful if you are trying to control impulsive spending.
Stores use various retail psychology tricks to make us spend more, so it’s useful for shoppers to be aware of these and other factors that might make us spend more. In addition to avoiding caffeine (including coffee, tea or energy drinks) before shopping, here are a couple of other tips to avoid impulse buys:
- Shop with a list and budget and stick to them.
- Wait at least 24 hours before you make a purchase.
- Avoid “retail therapy”, i.e. shopping when you are emotional or upset.
- Avoid shopping when you are hungry or drunk. (Turn out coffee is not the only drink that makes you spend more; according to a separate survey, people spend an average of $444 a year on items while drunk.)
- Use cash instead of a card.
- Unsubscribe from retail newsletters.
- Remind yourself of your financial or savings goals.
My mind is blown. 😬 Thanks for sharing this! It all makes sense now 😂
Good post. Caffeine affects the brain by making it more alert and producing a feeling of energy. This can lead to people making impulsive decisions when buying items.
Yikes as a big coffee drinker I could be in trouble! Happily I don’t like to shop and am frugal.
This was very interesting. Maybe this is why most Targets have a Starbucks?! There’s nothing better than roaming Target and sipping a latte, but you always come out with way less money. I will have to watch my coffee intake when shopping from now on! Great article!
These are some great tips to help someone curb some impulsive spending. I am still not sure I necessarily agree that caffeine can contribute to impulsive spending. HOWEVER, with that being said, Target has a Starbucks in all of its stores. And soooooo many women admit how much they can’t resist overspending there. So, that alone along with the study you shared is more than enough proof to tell me that I’m wrong.
After reading this it all kinda makes sense! No wonder there’s always a Starbucks or Dunkin’ in major stores!
doing stuff without coffee is hard tho…