When you want something you didn’t plan to buy, put it in your cart and wait 24 hours before checking out. The 24-hour rule gives the rush of the moment time to fade, so tomorrow you judge the item instead of the urgency. If you still want it at that price, buy it.
Online stores are designed to close the sale before that rush fades.
When University of Michigan researchers reviewed 200 shopping and travel sites for a 2019 study, every one carried at least four features that can encourage impulse buying, and the average site had about 19. More than two-thirds used urgency cues such as limited-time discounts with countdown clocks. In a 2022 report, Federal Trade Commission staff flagged countdown timers that tell shoppers an offer is about to end when it isn’t actually time-limited.
A countdown works only if you decide before it ends. A 24-hour wait refuses that deadline, so the item has to win on its own the next day, against your budget and what you already own. The same study surveyed 151 online shoppers who wanted to rein in impulse buying, and “sleeping on it” or waiting a day was among the successful strategies they named most often.
Make the cart your waiting room. Add the item, close the tab, and set a reminder for the same time tomorrow. Deleting the card number a shopping site has saved makes it harder to skip the wait with one tap.
When the reminder goes off, ask whether you still want it at that price and what you’d give up to make room for it. The rule is for wants. A replacement for something you need, like a phone charger that just died, can skip the wait. Bigger purchases deserve a longer one, such as a week or a month.
If the deal vanishes while you wait, let it go. A discount that can’t survive a day was pressure, not savings.
Editorial & Advertiser Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided, commissioned, reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. Opinions expressed here are ours alone, not those of any advertiser. The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. That compensation may influence which products we cover and where and how they appear on a page – including the order in which they appear – but it does not influence our evaluations, ratings, or opinions. We do not include every company or offer available in the marketplace.
Related:
