You’re a smart person: you know the economy is slow and you’ve tightened the belt on your spending. Of course there’s that splurge you want, but you’re doing the responsible thing: holding off on the purchase. If it’s something you really want, though, chances are you go to the store and visit it once in a while (don’t lie, you know you do!).

Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but fondling the object of your spending affection will wind up biting you in the wallet.

See, a recent study has shown that your physical interaction with an object affects not only how much you want to own it, but how much you’re willing to pay for it.

You can look — but don’t touch.
A simple experiment with an inexpensive coffee mug revealed that in many cases, simply touching the coffee mug for a few seconds created an attachment that led people to pay more for the item. The results, which were published recently in the journal Judgment and Decision Making, found that people become personally attached to the mug within the first 30 seconds of contact. People who held the coffee mug longer than a few seconds seemed not only more compelled to outbid others in an auction setting, but they were also more willing to bid more than the retail price for that item.

That’s right: simply touching an object makes you want it. Not only that, but it makes you willing to pay more for it.

With this in mind, try some of these no-contact shopping tips

• Compare items online even if you intend to purchase them locally.
• Keep store visits to a minimum, and always shop with a list.
• Try to do routine shopping (like groceries) alone, otherwise your shopping partners are likely to grab an item and not want to let it go.
• When clothes shopping, know your size and material preferences in advance, and only try on items that you are almost certain you’re going to buy.

When it doubt, just put your hands in your pockets and walk away.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Noteworthy News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.