Impulse buys may not be a matter of impulse says a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Shoppers often expect to buy a certain number of “unplanned” items, the research found, and most have a mental budget to accommodate those buys. The study calls this concept “in-store slack.” Consumers indicated that they employ the strategy because they anticipate forgotten needs and also because they know they’ll encounter “unplanned wants.” (
Planning to Make Unplanned Purchases? The role of in-store slack in budget deviation, Journal of Consumer Research: August 2010,
http://journals.uchicago.edu/jcr)
