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March 20, 20258 min readPsychology Explains Why Some People Buy So Much StuffFrom China to Brazil to Germany, huge numbers of people are addicted to shopping, driven in part by companies that use gaming strategiesBy Emma Marris & Nature magazine Fabio BuonocoreSadie has spent years hiding her problem from her family. In her day job, she works as a purchasing agent for a scientific firm, which requires placing large orders for everything from chemical reagents to US$8-million worth of glass vials. But in her personal time, Sadie goes on buying sprees for herself. She has ordered cameras, camera accessories, scrapbooking supplies, metal-detecting equipment, lasers, board games, planners, fountain pens, tech gadgets, nail polish, computer keyboard parts and yarn. She bought everything online.Before she knew it, she was $20,000 in debt. I couldnt believe it, she says. I never told my husband how bad it was. She has been paying the debt off, but she cant say exactly where the total stands today. Im so ashamed I wont even check the balance, she says. Sadie asked to remain anonymous so her family would not find out that shes a compulsive shopper.Sadies struggle is not a new phenomenon. German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin described krankhafte Kauflust the pathological desire to buy as early as 1899. But many specialists worry that the problem is getting much worse now in part because of the rise of e-commerce companies such as Amazon, Chinese fast-fashion firm Shein and online marketplace Temu, some of which use game-like strategies to sell items. Last year, the European Commission announced it was investigating several aspects of Temus business, including the risks linked to the addictive design of the service.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.As more and more shopping has moved online, retailers are increasingly using powerful psychological techniques to keep shoppers spending money. The Internet has, in effect, turned mundane behaviours such as shopping into something that resembles a drug, in the view of Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist at Stanford University in California, and the author of popular books about addiction. As a result, she says, it suddenly becomes a problem for the masses.And that problem extends across the globe. Researchers have studied compulsive shopping in many countries, including the United States, Turkey, Poland, Germany, India, Brazil, South Korea and Pakistan where almost one-third of university students were classified as compulsive buyers in both physical stores and online.There is particular concern about the problem in China, which might have the highest prevalence of the condition ever recorded. Heping He, a marketing researcher at Shenzhen University in China, conducted a survey that found around 29.1% of the general population of China shopped compulsively.He is one of many researchers around the globe who are investigating the prevalence of the problem as well as the brain pathways involved and how compulsive shopping relates to similar types of condition. But researchers studying these issues face a problem: there is no official diagnosis of shopping addiction or compulsive shopping, which could help to stimulate further research and aid with demands for regulation.Consumer cultureAlthough compulsive shopping has probably existed for as long as money and markets have, the Internet has made it much easier for people to make purchases. Before the rise of online shopping in China, few people paid attention to compulsive-buying behaviour, says He. Today, China is one of the most developed regions globally in terms of Internet commerce, he says. Add that to what he describes as a materialistic consumer culture and youve got an epidemic of shopping addiction.Compulsive shopping was once seen as problem that affected mostly women. But not all studies have found differences between genders, especially among younger shoppers. In China, He says the gender gap in compulsive buying appears to be narrowing, as men increasingly embrace online shopping amid the boom in Internet retailing.Although data suggest that the problem is surging, theres no official entry for shopping addiction or compulsive shopping in the two main references that are used to help make diagnoses: the International Classification of Diseases which is maintained by the World Health Organization and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Many clinicians and researchers say that the time has come to make the condition official. This is necessary, they say, to help people who are facing the problem to gain access to care.Brain scans indicate that shopping can activate the dopamine reward system.Westend61/Getty ImagesOne reason compulsive shopping is not yet a recognized disorder is a lack of consensus on its cause. Researchers debate whether it is brought about by a pathological level of impulsivity, a compulsion resembling obsessivecompulsive disorder or a behavioural addiction, activating reward pathways similar to those linked to drugs and alcohol. Although many researchers who have looked into the issue would like to see more studies completed, the addiction model for compulsive shopping seems to be ascendant among specialists, as the broader category of behavioural addictions is increasingly accepted. Gambling disorder, which is in many ways similar to compulsive shopping, was added to the fifth edition of the DSM in 2013 and was grouped with addictions to substances.According to Lembke, the phenomenology of shopping addiction also follows the classic addiction pattern: People do it at the beginning either to have fun or to solve a problem, from managing anxiety or depression to loneliness to boredom. If the behaviour works for them, they keep repeating it until it changes their brains and they cant stop, even as they descend into debt and, in some cases, destroy relationships with close family, she says.There are some brain-imaging studies that support the addiction theory for shopping. Patrick Trotzke, a psychologist at Charlotte Fresenius University in Cologne, Germany, scanned the brains of 18 people who were seeking treatment for buyingshopping disorder and 18 control participants while showing them pictures of shopping centres and shopping bags, as well as desirable objects, such as handbags and consumer electronics. In individuals with a shopping problem, these images activated the dopamine reward system in the striatum the same system implicated in drug addiction. They get thrilled when you show them these pictures, Trotzke says. The dopaminergic reward system is on fire. This tends to weaken the control system in the prefrontal cortex, Trotzke adds, until affected individuals no longer have control over their purchasing behaviour.Further evidence that compulsive shopping is connected to this dopamine reward system comes from people who are taking excessive amounts of medicine that alters this system and who then develop uncontrolled shopping behaviours. In one case report of a person with Parkinsons disease who took more dopaminergic medication than prescribed, the individual presented dressed in colourful clothes and was wearing three gold necklaces. It emerged that they had purchased over 5,000 pocket watches and 42 old and unusable cars.In 2021, 138 specialists from 35 countries were asked to weigh in on diagnostic criteria for buyingshopping disorder. The group used the Delphi method, which is an iterative and anonymous way of collecting opinions from a group that prevents leading researchers from exerting undue influence. The group agreed that the condition was a distinct entity that was due to addictive behaviours and settled on the name compulsive buying disorder. The studys authors derived a proposed list of criteria for the disorder, which includes intrusive urges to buy; lack of control over buying; buying items without using them; chasing the high of buying and using buying to feel better about bad feelings; and experiencing negative consequences because of buying.However, the idea that people either have or do not have compulsive buying disorder might be simplistic. Its a spectrum disorder, just like drugs and alcohol, Lembke says. Some people have a bit of a shopping problem and other people end up with very severe addictions where they go into huge financial debt and they lose their primary relationship.A 2020 study of more than 1,000 people in Switzerland grouped participants into categories of shoppers, including risky and addicted. The researchers estimated that around 3% of the people in their sample were truly addicted to online shopping, with a further 11% at risk, because they agreed with the statements I think about shopping/buying things all the time and I shop/buy things in order to change my mood.Brain-imaging studies such as Trotzkes cant be used to neatly diagnose compulsive buying disorder, because shopping is at least somewhat rewarding for most people. I like shopping, and when you show me shopping-related things, my brain reward system is also turning on, he explains.Limited treatment optionsThe only empirically supported treatment for compulsive shopping is cognitive behavioural therapy, according to Trotzke. But few studies explored other therapeutic or pharmacological approaches. Similarly, little work has been conducted on how the retail environment might induce or worsen problematic shopping.Mava Flayelle and Jol Billieux, both behavioural addiction researchers at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, say their work attempts to expand the focus from the psychology of the individual to the design features of websites and apps that, in Flayelles words, are challenging user self-control abilities. She says many of these features such as integration of shopping with social media, reward points for purchases, roulette wheels of deals and discounts, countdown timers that create time pressures to buy and apps that allow shoppers to pay in instalments can erode self-control in susceptible individuals.Another development in online shopping is loot boxes integrated into some video games. These cost money to open and contain an unknown but possibly valuable digital item that can then be sold to other players. These boxes combine gaming, shopping and gambling into a single package that proves to be irresistible for some people. Loot boxes have so far escaped the kinds of regulation that are placed on slot machines.A 2024 Council of Europe policy paper argued that the video-game industry needs to take responsibility for the harms its products cause and recommended effective regulatory measures. But, Flayelle says, we are really at the beginning. And the technological innovation of online businesses is moving much more quickly than research and regulation.Lembke has taken part in some academic discussions of banning advertising on sites designed for teenagers, but this could face resistance in the United States, where President Trumps administration has said it will reduce regulation. In China, He says that retailers are more inclined to implement measures that stimulate consumer purchases rather than take steps to prevent shopping addiction.Although countries might not adopt regulations that could help, trade restrictions could put a dent in the global e-commerce industry. Along with the investigation into Temus addictive design, the European Commission announced in early February that it is also looking into whether low-value imports are harmful or counterfeit. Some 12 million parcels per day enter the EU market, the commission says, three times as many as in 2022.In the meantime, self-described shopping addicts are left to tackle their problems individually, either with the help of a professional or on their own. Communities of people with shopping problems congregate on social-networking platforms, such as Reddit, where they share stories and encourage one another to change their habits. As a moderator on one of these forums, Sadie has recently cut back on shopping, saying that her world view and priorities have shifted.Taking a break from endlessly scrolling through products has been revelatory for Sadie. We are bombarded with feel-good mini jolts every time our phone pings, she says. Were all running on a hamster wheel trying to hit that dopamine button in our brain again and again.This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on March 4, 2025.
