Beat Impulse Purchases

Impulse purchases are those “see-grab-buy” purchases without really thinking hard about the purchase before making it. It’s a phenomenon especially in the electronic work with a trend that many want to have a device or software on launch day. Say video game systems, mp3 player and even computer games.

The matter is even getting more pressing if the supply is limited, say a limited edition of a computer game or a super duper price for a product that usually costs a lot more. That’s like putting more pressure on the consumer and it usually works.

I’m sometimes hard pressed to stop myself from buying a device after reading about it on the Internet. I came up with a system that is beating impulse buying fair and square and it will definitely save you some money.

It’s actually a pretty easy system. If I see or read about something that I want I think about it for a second. Do I really need the device right now? The answer would be yes in the case of a crashed hard drive but no for a gamin system or computer game.

Every item where I come to the conclusion that I do not need it right away lands on my 90-days list. I add the date and the name of the product on that list. I check back after 90 days and see if I still want to buy that product. If I do I buy it but more often than not I don’t care anymore. Let me give you an example where this worked perfectly.

You might remember that I wanted to buy a SSD (Solid State Drives) for my new computer. SSDs were expensive and rare at that time and most could not really live up to the promise. I put that SSD drive on my 90 days list and ordered one just a few days ago because I still wanted one. Those 90 days however saw some great product releases of reliable and fast SSD drives and I was able to grab one of the fastest for a third of the price that I would have paid back then. As I said, it works pretty well and more often than not it saves you money.

Ladies, this works extremely well for non-tech related products like shoes, perfumes, clothes or books.

Related Articles:

Author: Martin Brinkmann, Tuesday July 22, 2008 -
Tags:computer, devices, Hardware, impulse buy, impulse purchases, ssd

Responses so far:

1. Rarst says:

   July 22, 2008 at 1:02 pm

   Yep, postponing purchase usually has good results in the end. I was brooding over buying e-ink book reader when they became available… In the end I bought one year+ later, 30% cheaper, with better (next generation) screen.

   I could buy it right away – and end up with very new and unpolished product with sub-par specs (original screen sucks comparing to later ones).

   There is very little justifying of buying anything on release day. Especially with electronics and such. I think balance between price and functions is reached roughly in the middle of release day and stopping production.

   Reply
2. Ken says:

   July 22, 2008 at 5:13 pm

   This will come in handy, I’m incorporating it right now

   Reply
3. Rarst says:

   July 22, 2008 at 5:43 pm

   Ok, spam filter ate my long thorough comment again (it seems to be especially paranoid with purchase-related words).

   Short version – method works. :)

   Reply