Do you ever flick open your laptop or grab your phone, excited to hunt for the perfect jacket or pair of boots, only to emerge hours later having bought nothing and feeling like you’ve been chewed up and spit out? Lately, that’s been my journey with online shopping, and it…blows. I go in with a simple task and come out feeling anxious, exhausted, and cranky about the world and everyone in it.
For some people, browsing digital stores can be quite the opposite—a pleasant, if not highly gratifying, activity. Hell, it’s called retail therapy for a reason. When you shop, your brain’s reward center gets activated, which triggers the release of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine, Kate Cummins, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist and speaker in the Bay Area, tells SELF.
If that’s true, then why can online shopping also feel so mentally and physically draining? I asked a couple of experts to weigh in—and share how you (and I) can get to the virtual checkout without falling more or less into a pit of despair.
For one, online shopping is seriously overwhelming.
One of the biggest factors at play is (not surprisingly) the vastness of what’s for sale on the internet. “Consumers are absolutely overwhelmed and overloaded with choices when shopping online,” Diedre Popovich, PhD, an associate professor of marketing in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University, tells SELF.
Dr. Popvich, who researches how consumer behavior impacts well-being, points out that when you go into a brick-and-mortar store, you’re typically guided on a journey through the layout and signage—and your options are limited. On the web, you have near infinite brands, retailers, and products to comb through, with little guidance. “Research shows that we have a paradox of choice: Consumers love to have a lot of different options available to us, but when we have too many, we actually end up in decision paralysis,” she says—also called analysis paralysis, this term refers to the inability to decide due to overwhelming choices.
And it’s not just that you’re drowning in products but also being inundated with information: sales and promotions, customer reviews, details on materials, size charts, etc. All this, yet you still can’t see, feel, or try anything on. As a result, online shopping will always feel somewhat uncertain, which can lead to stress, anxiety, and frustration, Neeru Paharia, MS, a professor of marketing at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, tells SELF.