Shopping addiction and the traps of Black Friday

The difference between an impulsive purchase and a compulsive one has much more to do with what happens before and after than with what you buy.

An impulsive purchase is a quick decision, after which you get on with your life, whereas a compulsive one starts from a tension that builds until paying seems like the only way out. What follows is brief relief and, very often, shame.

A review published in 2007 in the journal World Psychiatry describes exactly this sequence: a constant preoccupation with shopping, tension or anxiety before the purchase and relief immediately after it. The things you buy only matter at the very end. Many of them stay in their packaging.

The World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) mentions it as an example under code 6C7Y, “other specified impulse control disorders”. It is clinically recognized, though it doesn't yet have a chapter of its own, and researchers are still debating whether it belongs among impulse control disorders or among addictions.

A German study from 2026 found in people with pathological buying the features ICD-11 uses for behavioral addictions, such as gambling addiction: intense craving, distress, harm and the need to make up for a bad mood by shopping.

How common is it? The most cited meta-analysis, published in 2016 in the journal Addiction, pooled 40 studies from 16 countries, with roughly 32,000 participants. Among adults in representative samples, the combined prevalence came out at 4.9%, which is almost 1 person in 20. Among university students it rose to 8.3%. Among people recruited from shopping-related settings it reached 16.2%.

Younger age and female sex were associated with a stronger tendency. In October 2026 an update based on 111 studies came out, arriving at 4.6% for adults and 5.9% among online shoppers.

A sales campaign is built to shrink the distance between the urge and the act.

• The countdown timer and the message that there are “only 2 left” make urgent a decision that could have waited.
• The “today only” label turns putting it off into a loss.
• One-click payment and the card saved in your account remove the last moment when you might have changed your mind.
• Paying in installments is sold as “buy now, pay later” and moves the cost into a vague future.

All of these push in the same direction. The same 2026 German study showed that people with pathological buying more readily choose a small, immediate reward over a larger but delayed one, and installments fit that tendency perfectly.

The online store adds something more. It is open 24 hours a day, it finds you in bed at 1 in the morning and it has no checkout line, where you would get the chance to think twice. The mechanism of unpredictable reward is the same one you find in social media addiction, and now the offers blend right in with the posts.

In Romania, Black Friday has had its own calendar for several years. The retailer eMAG announced the start of its campaign on 6 November 2026, and Euronews România notes that most discounts on the market will cluster around that date. In the US, Black Friday falls on 27 November.

Last year's surveys in Romania pointed to a more cautious shopper. An MKOR study from October 2025, of 1,000 respondents aged 18 to 55, showed that 93% of those planning to buy made a list in advance, and the estimated average budget was 2,046 lei, 33% more than in 2024. A Cargus survey from the same month showed that almost 40% of participants wanted to spend less than the year before.

These are opinion surveys, so they show what people say beforehand, not how much they actually spend. For anyone struggling with compulsive shopping, the list made in advance is the first thing to break.

Compulsive buying rarely comes alone. The World Psychiatry review describes a frequent association with mood and anxiety disorders, substance use, eating disorders and other impulse control disorders.

A 2012 study from the University of Iowa compared 26 people with compulsive buying disorder with 32 people without it. The first group reported more symptoms of depression, more impulsivity and more symptoms of ADHD, although neuropsychological tests showed no clear pattern of deficits that set them apart from the comparison group.

Another American study followed the same people for 29 years, from an average age of 14 to 43, and found that depressed mood and ADHD symptoms were associated with compulsive buying in adulthood.

The association doesn't tell you which came first. What matters for you is the practical side. If you treat only the spending and leave an undiagnosed depression or ADHD aside, the urge still has somewhere to start from.

The good news is that the disorder can be treated. The best evidence so far is on the side of psychotherapy.

A randomized study carried out in 2008 at the university clinic in Erlangen compared 31 patients who attended 12 weekly sessions of group cognitive behavioral therapy with 29 patients on a waiting list. Symptoms decreased significantly in the therapy group. The improvement still held at 6 months.

A review of treatment studies published up to 2022 reached the same conclusion about group therapy, while SSRI antidepressants and topiramate did not prove better than placebo. The authors acknowledge that many of the studies are small and that none looked specifically at online shopping. A 2016 analysis of 29 studies had also pointed to group psychotherapy as the most promising option.

Debt counseling helps a great deal, and so does couples therapy, because hidden money and conflict at home keep the cycle going. Shame is what keeps the problem hidden. If your debts have reached the point where you think there is no point anymore, call 112 and tell someone close to you what is happening.