Let’s Shop! Exploring the Experiences of Therapy Shoppers

Abstract

Retail therapy is casually defined as shopping for theprimary purpose of making oneself feel better. Individuals’desire to assuage their negative moods is an important personalneed. Successful mood management affects emotionalwell-being and perceived quality of life. Thus, this researchwas designed to enhance understanding of retail therapy as aform of consumer behavior by investigating consumer’sexperiences during three shopping stages: pre-shopping,shopping, and post-shopping. The following research questionswere developed to achieve this goal. R1: What kinds ofnegative moods lead to therapy shopping? How often dopeople use shopping as therapy? R2: What reasons do peopleoffer for their use of shopping as therapy? R3: What are thekey components of a therapeutic shopping experience? R4:What is the profile of the therapy shopper? R5: What are thepost therapy experiences of shoppers? R6: What is the role ofthe product purchased in alleviating mood?Retail therapy has been studied from two differentapproaches: mood-alleviative consumption (Kacen, 1998; Kacenand Friese, 1999; Luomala, 2002) and compensatoryconsumption (Woodruffe, 1997; Yurchisin, Yan,Watchravesringkan, and Chen, 2008). For the first approach,shopping and buying are considered mood-regulatory devices. Individuals experiencing bad moods shop and make purchasesto repair or lighten their mood. In contrast, compensatoryconsumption researchers view shopping and buying as a formof compensation for perceived psychosocial deficiencies. Theapproach adopted in the current research was mood-alleviationconsumption. Luomala (2002) emphasized the existence of qualitativelydifferent negative moods and labeled them as irritation, stress,and dejection. Luomala also identified eight types oftherapeutic power stemming from different mood-alleviativeconsumption activities. Shopping and purchasing were linked tothree types of therapeutic powers: the ability to improve moodby distraction, by being self-indulgent, and by feeling activated(e.g., stimulation of senses)In the current study, self-identified therapy shoppers (n =43) participated in in-depth interviews. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. To analyze the data, several cyclesof analysis were conducted. Analysis began with identificationof the details of each response. From the concrete level,statements were grouped together to identify themes of content. This process of interpretation was repeated for all researchquestions. Participants represented demographic diversity with theexception of gender. The majority of participants were women. About half of the participants were young adults between 20and 39 years of age. Slightly less than half were middle-agedpeople between 40 and 59 years of age. About half of theparticipants were European Americans, while the other halfrepresented Asian and African Americans. The majority ofparticipants was employed full-time in a variety of industriesand had annual incomes between $25,000 and $99,999. In the pre-shopping stage, all dimensions of negative moods(i.e., stress, dejection, anger) lead to therapy shopping. Whenexperiencing negative moods, most participants went shoppingto alleviate them more than half of the time. There was not aclear pattern exhibited linking the frequency of experiencing anegative mood with the frequency of going shopping toalleviate it. Participants provided various justifications for theirbehavior. Shopping provided a positive distraction, an escape,an indulgence, an elevation in self-esteem, activation, a senseof control, and a social connection. Improvement of mood stemmed from imaginingconsumption, experiencing retail environments, beingwell-treated by sales associates, shopping activity, andpurchasing. In general, these shoppers shopped alone, made anunplanned purchase for themselves, spent more time andmoney than typical, and were store loyal. Participants’ post-retail therapy experiences reflected feelingbetter right after a therapy shopping trip, not regretting theirtherapy shopping, and rationalizing their shopping if theyexperienced regret. Overall, participants indicated their use ofshopping as therapy was effective and successful and had littleor no negative consequences. For almost all participants,products purchased played an important role in alleviating theirmood initially. Many participants purchased apparel, used theitems purchased, and remembered the good experienceassociated with their purchase when they used the items later. However, they noted that the therapeutic value of a productdecreased over time. The primary contribution to the consumer behavior field isto support and significantly extend existing knowledge ofshopping as therapy. For example, all three of the therapeuticpowers identified in Luomala (2002)’s research were noted inour data and we identified four additional powers underlying the use of shopping as therapy in our research. Therefore,shopping entails a broader range of therapeutic powers thanpreviously identified. For retailers, identifying various reasons why consumerschoose shopping as therapy (e.g., escape, activation, sense ofcontrol) and different aspects of shopping (e.g., retailenvironment, purchasing) that alleviate their negative moodsduring shopping can greatly assist them in developing ways tomake consumers’ shopping experience an effective therapy. Forexample, window displays suggesting fantasy can attractshoppers who seek escape from reality. Also, to helpconsumers feel activated, retailers can provide variouseducational experiences. For instance, an apparel retailer couldprovide a flower show in spring to entertain and educateshoppers.