Retail therapy is shopping with the primary purpose of improving the buyer's mood or disposition. Often seen in people during periods of depression or transition, it is normally a short-lived habit. Items purchased during periods of retail therapy are sometimes referred to as "comfort buys".
Retail therapy was first used as a term in the 1980s with the first reference being this sentence in the Chicago Tribune of Christmas Eve 1986: "We've become a nation measuring out our lives in shopping bags and nursing our psychic ills through retail therapy."
In 2001, the European Union conducted a study finding that 33% of shoppers surveyed had "high level of addiction to rash or unnecessary consumption". This was causing debt problems for many. The same study also found that young Scottish people had the highest susceptibility to binge purchasing.
Researchers at Melbourne University have advocated its classification as a psychological disorder called oniomania or compulsive shopping disorder.
Famous quotes containing the words retail and/or therapy:
“A free-enterprise economy depends only on markets, and according to the most advanced mathematical macroeconomic theory, markets depend only on moods: specifically, the mood of the men in the pinstripes, also known as the Boys on the Street. When the Boys are in a good mood, the market thrives; when they get scared or sullen, it is time for each one of us to look into the retail apple business.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“Show business is the best possible therapy for remorse.”
—Anita Loos (1888–1981)