The average female shopaholic spends almost £1,000 a year – on impulse buys, a study revealed today.
Researchers found two out of three women regularly end up travelling home from a shopping trip with one or more items they hadn’t budgeted for.
One in ten women admitted spending almost £2,500 a year on items which ‘caught their eye’ while they wandered through the local shopping centre.
Yesterday a spokesman for OnePoll, which carried out the study among 2,000 women, said: ”It seems millions of women can’t help themselves when they hit the shops.
”In fact these figures show that almost every trip ends with an impulse buy, ranging from everything from clothes for themselves or children to jewels or DVDs.
”We also found the sales are a prime time for impulse buys with three out of five women admitting they couldn’t help but pick up something extra if it was cheap.”
The study also found shoes are the most common purchase, followed by DVDs, magazines and clothes.
Seven out of ten women said they had returned from the shops with a pair of ‘impulse’ shoes in the last 12 months.
Six out of ten said they regularly found themselves returning home with DVDs. A similar number said they had bought magazines.
Five out of ten said clothes were their biggest ‘impulse’ weakness.
The study also found women are more likely to make an impulse purchase if they are shopping with friends.
Mums are also ideal partners in crime, it emerged. Unsurprisingly, nine out of ten women said they would not dare make an impulse purchase if they were out with their other half.
Colleagues were also named and shamed as perfect partners for an impulsive shopping trip.
Four out of five women admitted buying items in the sale they would never have considered at full price.
And a third of confessed to buying something in a sale just so they could say they had ‘bought a bargain’.
TOP 10 IMPULSE BUYS
1. DVDs
2. Magazines
3. Clothes
4. Make-up
5. Shoes
6. Jewellery
7. Jumpers
8. Books
9. Household decorations
10. Clothes for kids
