British consumers spend £21.7billion on impulse purchases each year
Published: 25 November 2016
Britons spend an estimated £21.7billion on impulse purchases each year, according to new research.
Shop display designers DisplayMode surveyed 2,512 UK-based consumers aged 18 and over and discovered that the average Briton spends £416 on impulse purchases every year, with an average spend of £8 each time.
Additionally, while every respondent said they make impulse purchases on a regular basis, over half (54 per cent) admitted they found themselves buying something impulsively every time they went shopping.
Nearly two thirds (62 per cent) said they impulsively bought items they wanted but didn’t need, 21 per cent claimed they bought items they did not need but thought they might come in handy, and 16 per cent said that impulse buys were always items they believed they needed.
However, almost three quarters (71 per cent) of those polled said they had items at home that they had bought impulsively but never used and were planning to throw out.
Leon Edwards, managing director at DisplayMode, said: “Psychologically we often feel that if something is on offer or is going out of stock, we have to buy it right now or else we’ll miss out further down the line.
“Retailers have to realise that how they present their products really does affect consumers’ decisions. The displays could be the difference between a purchase and no purchase.
“Small businesses should definitely be concentrating their efforts on figuring out what displays work and what they can be doing to maximise their chances to see a massive surge in impulse buys this festive season.”
