Shopping Addiction

Understanding Shopping Addiction

Shopping addiction is a persistent pattern of hard-to-control shopping, browsing, or buying that causes distress or harms finances, relationships, work, or daily life. Researchers often call it compulsive buying-shopping disorder (CBSD) or buying-shopping disorder because experts still debate whether it is best understood as an addiction, an impulse-control disorder, or part of another clinical category.^[1][2]

An impulse-control disorder involves difficulty resisting urges to act despite harmful consequences.^[1]

The important question is not whether someone occasionally overspends. It is whether shopping repeatedly feels difficult to control, takes priority over responsibilities, continues despite harm, and becomes a way of managing uncomfortable feelings.^[3][2]

Treatment evidence centers on psychotherapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)—talk therapy that works on unhelpful thoughts and behavior patterns—and assessment of other mental health conditions. Money management is part of some studied CBT programs.^[1][4] Practical options to consider include spending safeguards and help from someone you trust. You do not need to settle the debate over “addiction” before taking a useful first step.

What Is Shopping Addiction?

“Shopping addiction” is a familiar phrase, but it is not a simple or universally defined diagnosis. Researchers use several terms, including compulsive buying, compulsive shopping, buying-shopping disorder, and compulsive buying-shopping disorder⁠.^[1][2]

The 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases coding tool lists compulsive buying-shopping disorder as an example of an “other specified impulse control disorder.” The classification debate continues, however, and research also examines similarities with substance use disorders—harmful, difficult-to-control patterns of alcohol or drug use—and other behavioral addictions.^[3][5][1]

A behavioral addiction is a proposed pattern in which a rewarding activity—not a substance—becomes difficult to control and continues despite harm. In the United States, gambling disorder is the only behavioral addiction formally recognized as a clinical disorder in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5.^[6]

This uncertainty does not mean the problem is imaginary. It means professionals must assess the person’s behavior, distress, consequences, and possible alternative explanations instead of relying on the everyday label alone.

How Can Compulsive Shopping Appear in Everyday Life?

Problematic shopping is not defined by one product, store, or dollar amount. It may involve clothes, gifts, collectibles, household goods, digital purchases, or repeated bargain hunting. The behavior can happen online, in stores, or through a mixture of both environments.^[3]

The shopping process can matter as much as the purchase. Someone may spend substantial time searching, comparing, filling carts, following sales, or thinking about the next transaction. Expert-proposed criteria include intrusive urges, persistent preoccupation, diminished control, spending more time or money than intended, and repeated unsuccessful efforts to cut back.^[2]

Other recognizable patterns include:

• Buying goods that are not needed or are not used for their intended purpose
• Returning, giving away, throwing out, or forgetting items soon after buying them
• Hiding purchases or shopping in secret
• Lying about shopping or the amount spent
• Buying more than can be afforded
• Continuing despite debt, shame, relationship conflict, or disrupted responsibilities
• Shopping for other people in search of approval, validation, or protection from rejection^[1][2]

Frequent returns do not by themselves rule out a problem. Expert-proposed criteria recognize that people may return or otherwise dispose of unnecessary purchases soon after buying them. Assessment also considers loss of control, distress, and interference with life.^[2]

Online and In-Store Patterns

Online shopping can make buying private, immediate, and continuously accessible. Reported reasons associated with problematic online shopping include avoiding face-to-face interaction, buying without being observed, browsing a very large selection, and satisfying an urge quickly.^[3]

One review reported that online CBSD was associated with greater severity and more interference with work, school, health, social commitments, and daily duties than offline CBSD. Time-consuming online browsing may occur at night, during work or school, in meetings, or when other responsibilities require attention.^[3]

That association does not establish that shopping online causes the disorder. Individual vulnerabilities, expectations, motives, payment systems, and online-shopping features may all contribute. Researchers still know relatively little about how technology and shopping features built into social platforms affect compulsive online searching and purchasing.^[3]

How Does the Compulsive Shopping Cycle Work?

Compulsive shopping may involve using purchases to manage feelings and continuing despite harmful consequences.^[2] The following is an illustrative cycle, not a sequence established for every person. Its possible triggers and reactions are examples to help you reflect on your own experience:

1. Trigger: Stress, low mood, conflict, boredom, an advertisement, a sale, or seeing a desired product may start the process.
2. Anticipation: Thoughts narrow around browsing or buying, and the person imagines excitement, comfort, relief, approval, or escape.
3. Shopping: Browsing and purchasing provide an immediate activity and possible reward.
4. Short-term change: The person may briefly feel pleasure, relief, control, or emotional distance from a problem.
5. Later distress: Debt, regret, guilt, shame, secrecy, conflict, or unused goods create new stress.
6. Repetition: That distress may become another reason to seek relief through shopping.

Expert-proposed criteria specifically include using shopping to regulate internal emotional states, experiencing negative emotional or thinking-related symptoms when excessive shopping stops, and maintaining or escalating the behavior despite consequences.^[2]

Reward and relief processes similar to those studied in gambling and substance use disorders may be relevant, particularly in online shopping. However, the exact brain and psychological mechanisms remain uncertain.^[3]

A 2023 systematic review, which gathered and evaluated research on a defined question, found only 11 recent studies examining brain-and-thinking processes in compulsive shopping. Those studies pointed toward difficulties with executive functions, decision-making, responses to rewards, behavioral control, and reactions to shopping-related reminders or cues. The small evidence base limits firm conclusions.^[5]

Executive functions are mental skills used to plan, pause, consider consequences, shift attention, and control behavior. The findings suggest why compulsive shopping can be more complex than weak willpower, without establishing one explanation for everyone.^[5]

How Is Shopping Addiction Different From Overspending?

An impulse purchase is a spur-of-the-moment decision. Occasional overbuying and later regret can happen without the persistent loss of control, distress, interference with life, and continued buying despite harm associated with compulsive shopping.^[1][2]

Compulsive buying-shopping disorder is understood as a persistent or recurring pattern involving impaired control, distress, functional harm, and continuation despite negative consequences.^[3][2]

The dividing line is not a fixed number of purchases. Experts have had difficulty agreeing on a frequency threshold, and proposed diagnostic approaches focus more on control, persistence, purpose, consequences, and interference with life.^[2]

Questions that may clarify the difference include:

• Do shopping thoughts or urges repeatedly feel intrusive or irresistible?
• Does browsing take much longer than intended?
• Have attempts to stop or reduce shopping repeatedly failed?
• Are purchases hidden from a partner or family member?
• Are bills, rent, food, medication, or other necessities being put at risk?
• Is shopping interfering with sleep, work, school, caregiving, or relationships?
• Are items regularly unused, forgotten, returned, or discarded?
• Does the person continue even after serious regret, debt, or conflict?

The more persistent and harmful the pattern becomes, the more useful a professional assessment may be.

What Can Increase Vulnerability to Compulsive Shopping?

There is no single established cause. Research describes a mixture of emotional, cognitive, behavioral, environmental, and social factors. These factors may be associated with compulsive shopping without necessarily causing it in a particular person. A risk factor is not a diagnosis or a personal explanation.^[1]

Difficulty stopping a response before acting, called poor response inhibition, and acting impulsively may play a role.^[1] Obsessive-compulsive symptoms involve uncontrollable recurring thoughts or repetitive, excessive behaviors.^[7]

In one study of 103 people with buying-shopping disorder, tasks involving preference for immediate rather than delayed rewards supported a closer relationship with behavioral addiction than with obsessive-compulsive symptoms.^[1]

An online questionnaire study involving 189 participants found that mental disengagement—mentally turning away from a problem—denial, and substance use as coping methods predicted vulnerability to buying-shopping disorder.^[1] Because this was questionnaire-based research, it cannot establish that those coping patterns directly caused the disorder.^[1]

Mood, anxiety, substance use, and personality disorders commonly appear alongside compulsive shopping in the research literature.^[8] Behavioral addictions more broadly also frequently co-occur with depression, anxiety, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, which affects attention, organization, and impulse control.^[6][9]

Access to credit may affect shopping decisions. Two simulated shopping experiments, each involving more than 100 participants, found differences between compulsive and noncompulsive shoppers in searching, overspending, budget awareness, responses to credit-card availability, and emotional reactions to overspending.^[10] These experiments do not establish what causes an individual’s shopping problem.^[10]

Online-shopping features such as availability, anonymity, speed, product variety, and payment options may also contribute to problematic online buying. Their specific effects remain incompletely understood.^[3]

When Might Shopping Be Part of Another Condition?

A careful assessment asks whether shopping is an ongoing problem in its own right or is better explained by another mental disorder, a medical condition, or medication effects. These possibilities may require different responses. Assessment also considers other conditions present at the same time, including substance use disorders.^[2][3][1]

Bipolar Mania or Hypomania

Mania is a period of unusually elevated, energized, or intensely irritable mood accompanied by substantial changes in behavior and activity. Hypomania has similar features but is less severe. Bipolar mood episodes may include needing less sleep, racing thoughts, rapid speech, feeling unusually powerful, and risky behavior such as spending or giving away large amounts of money.^[11][12]

Proposed CBSD criteria state that the shopping pattern should not occur exclusively during mania or hypomania.^[2] Shopping that appears suddenly alongside major changes in sleep, energy, speech, confidence, irritability, or risk-taking may need assessment as a possible bipolar mood-episode symptom rather than being assumed to be a stand-alone shopping problem.^[11][12]

Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) involves uncontrollable recurring thoughts, repetitive and excessive behaviors, or both.^[7] The “OCD spectrum” refers to conditions considered related to these features. Compulsive shopping has been discussed within this group, but that classification remains disputed. Repeated buying alone does not settle the distinction.^[1]

For an assessment, consider describing what happens before and after shopping: Do thoughts feel intrusive? Is buying intended to relieve a particular fear, seek a reward, or change a feeling? Are there other repetitive thoughts or behaviors? Compulsive shopping and obsessive-compulsive symptoms can occur together, so these questions are starting points rather than a way to diagnose yourself.^[1][2]

Hoarding

Hoarding concerns accumulating and retaining possessions, rather than buying alone. Buying-shopping disorder can occur alongside hoarding disorder, but they are not automatically the same problem. People with CBSD may instead return, discard, or give away purchases. Expert consensus supports noting excessive hoarding of purchased items as an additional feature, not a requirement for CBSD.^[2]

Treatment studies also suggest that more severe hoarding symptoms may complicate recovery. In one controlled group cognitive behavioral therapy study, greater hoarding symptoms before treatment and attendance at fewer sessions were associated with poorer outcomes.^[3]

Substance Use and Medication Effects

Substance use disorders can coexist with problematic shopping, and substance use has been identified as a potentially unhelpful coping pattern associated with vulnerability.^[1] Consider telling the evaluator about alcohol or drug use and whether you notice a connection with shopping, without assuming one caused the other.

Compulsive buying may also emerge as an impulse-control problem in some people with Parkinson’s disease, a progressive nervous-system disorder affecting movement and other functions. A 2024 review found an association between impulse-control disorders and dopaminergic medicines—medicines that affect dopamine signaling—in this population.^[13]

The review particularly identified dopamine agonists, medicines that act like dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain. Higher doses were associated with greater risk of impulse-control disorders in people with Parkinson’s disease. This finding should not be generalized to everyone taking medication.^[13]

For people with Parkinson’s disease, the review recommends systematic screening—regular checks for signs of impulse-control disorders—throughout follow-up, particularly when dopamine agonists are prescribed.^[13] A practical question for the prescriber is: “Could starting or changing this medicine be affecting my shopping, and what should we do next?”

How Is Problematic Shopping Assessed?

Assessment usually considers the pattern over time, the person’s sense of control, emotional triggers, spending consequences, daily functioning, and possible co-occurring conditions. A clinician may also ask about online and in-store behavior, hidden purchases, debt, unused items, returns, mood changes, sleep, substance use, and medication history.

There is no single questionnaire that settles the diagnosis. Available measures include the Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale, the Pathological Buying Screener, the Edwards Compulsive Buying Scale, the Questionnaire About Buying Behavior, and the Richmond Compulsive Buying Scale.^[3][14]

These tools do not all measure exactly the same concept. A 2015 study tested three scales in a nationally representative Hungarian sample of 2,710 people and a separate sample of 1,447 shopping-mall customers.^[14] Different scales produced different estimates and appeared to identify somewhat different groups.^[14]

That study estimated compulsive buying behavior at 1.85% in the Hungarian general-population sample using one questionnaire.^[14] Estimates among mall customers ranged from 2.5% to 13.3%, depending on the measure.^[14] These figures should not be applied directly to the current U.S. population.

A 2022 review estimated that compulsive shopping affected 5% of the U.S. general population, but measurement differences and limited nationally representative data make its extent uncertain.^[8][14]

A screening result indicates possible risk. It is not proof of a disorder. Cutoffs, or scores used to flag possible risk, are available for the Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale and Pathological Buying Screener. Of these two tools, the reviewed literature reported testing the diagnostic threshold in patient samples only for the Pathological Buying Screener—an important limit on how confidently scores can be interpreted.^[3]

A shopping addiction test can help organize concerns before a conversation with a professional, but it should not be used alone to diagnose yourself or someone else.

What Harm Can Compulsive Shopping Cause?

Financial harm can include repeated overdrafts, growing credit balances, inability to meet payments, depleted savings, bankruptcy, or placing basic needs at risk. The seriousness depends on affordability and consequences, not just the amount spent in one transaction.^[3][2]

Relationship effects may include lying, secrecy, conflict, broken agreements, loss of trust, and pressure on shared finances. Shame or embarrassment may lead someone to conceal both purchases and debt.^[3]

Shopping and browsing can also interfere with work, education, caregiving, hobbies, sleep, and ordinary responsibilities. Reported consequences include reduced interest in other activities, career risk, family discord, clinically significant distress, regret, and impairment in social or occupational functioning.^[3][2]

Legal problems have been reported in treatment-seeking groups, but an expert panel rejected theft, embezzlement, deception, and other illegal behavior as a core diagnostic requirement because substantial empirical evidence was lacking.^[2] Legal trouble should therefore be treated as a possible severe consequence, not as a defining feature.

How Is Shopping Addiction Treated?

Treatment aims to improve control, reduce harmful shopping, address its emotional and practical drivers, repair financial and relationship damage, and strengthen daily functioning. The appropriate mix depends on severity, debt, co-occurring conditions, access, cost, and personal preferences.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a structured form of talk therapy that helps people recognize links among situations, thoughts, feelings, urges, and actions. For compulsive shopping, it may include learning about the pattern, identifying triggers, changing unhelpful beliefs, controlling access to spending, building alternative coping strategies, and planning for relapse prevention.^[4]

Systematic reviews identify CBT, particularly group CBT, as the psychological treatment with the most support so far. However, studies were generally small and reporting quality was often low. Some compared therapy with a waitlist group, whose participants were waiting for treatment, rather than an active-treatment group receiving another therapy. That limits conclusions about whether CBT is better than other therapies.^[1][3]

A systematic review of studies published from January 2000 through December 2022 included 13 studies, with 349 treatment participants and 149 control participants. Six studies examined psychotherapy and seven examined medication approaches. The psychotherapy studies suggested reductions in symptoms with group CBT, but the evidence was not strong enough to settle which treatment format works best.^[3]

Participation can be difficult. One study of 97 patients reported a 28% risk of poor adherence—difficulty following the individual CBT program—and a 46.4% discontinuation rate, meaning treatment was stopped.^[1] Depression, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, personality characteristics, and other factors were associated with adherence, but these findings do not determine how any individual will respond.^[1]

No treatment study in the 2023 systematic review specifically addressed online CBSD. Researchers cautioned that findings from in-store or mixed shopping should not simply be assumed to apply fully to online problems because internet purchasing has distinctive features.^[3]

Spending Barriers and Money Management

Practical barriers create time and distance between an urge and a purchase. They are not substitutes for mental health care when the problem is severe, but they can reduce immediate access and make patterns easier to see.

Possible steps include:

• Removing stored payment information from shopping sites
• Unsubscribing from promotional messages
• Deleting shopping apps or using website blockers
• Turning off one-click ordering and shopping notifications
• Using a written list and a predetermined spending limit
• Waiting before nonessential purchases
• Tracking purchases, returns, and urges
• Separating money needed for housing, food, utilities, transportation, and health care
• Asking a trusted person to review a plan or shared account, with clear consent and boundaries

One CBT program studied in 77 women included money management, stimulus control—managing situations that prompt shopping—alternative behaviors, spending records, and avoidance of high-risk situations.^[4] These practices were part of a specific 12-week outpatient program, not independently tested treatments. Its findings should not be generalized to every person or treatment format.

Before choosing a financial safeguard, ask practical questions: Who would see account alerts? What information would a blocking tool collect, and would it charge fees? Could you still access money for necessities? What consent and boundaries would apply to another person’s involvement?

Consensual help is different from coercive control. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) identifies controlling another person’s money or withholding enough for food and essentials as possible signs of domestic abuse. If this is happening, consider independent support from a health professional or domestic-abuse service rather than giving the person causing harm more control.^[15]

Budgeting and Debt Support

A realistic budget should first protect basic needs and reveal the full financial picture. Gather current balances, interest rates, minimum payments, overdue notices, subscriptions, buy-now-pay-later plans, and expected income.

If you contact a financial counselor, ask whether they can help organize your debts and explain your options. Before sharing information or paying a fee, ask about credentials, total costs, data privacy, creditor relationships, cancellation policies, and whether the service requires closing accounts.

Treat budgeting as one part of a plan, not as proof that shopping urges have been addressed. Studied CBT programs have combined money management with work on triggers, thoughts, alternative behaviors, and preventing a return to compulsive buying.^[4]

Family and Peer Support

Consider asking someone you trust for specific, agreed-upon help: encouragement, a check-in about spending goals, transportation, childcare, or help organizing bills. Discuss what would feel supportive and what information you want to keep private. These are practical suggestions, not independently established treatments for CBSD.

A study of 77 women with CBSD, including 49 mothers, found that mothers reported more perceived family support and showed a lower risk of relapse during a 12-week CBT program.^[4] The relapse difference did not reach statistical significance, so the study did not demonstrate that motherhood or family support caused better outcomes.^[4]

The study had no waitlist control group, did not measure outcomes after treatment, and did not include women who never started treatment. It therefore offers a useful question—whether practical family support improves engagement—rather than a universal conclusion.^[4]

If you want shared experience or encouragement, consider exploring a peer group. Before joining, ask how meetings work, who leads them, what confidentiality rules apply, whether participation requires particular beliefs or payments, and whether the group encourages professional care when needed. These questions help you compare options. They do not establish a group’s effectiveness for CBSD.

Treatment of Co-Occurring Conditions

Depression, anxiety, substance use, ADHD, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, hoarding, bipolar disorder, and medical or medication-related impulse-control problems may need separate assessment.^[1][6][13]

Other conditions may need treatment even when compulsive shopping is also present. Reviews recommend assessing co-occurring mental health conditions, while proposed CBSD criteria distinguish shopping that occurs exclusively during mania or hypomania from a separate shopping disorder.^[1][2] If you are concerned about medication effects, consider asking the prescriber whether a medicine could be contributing to the shopping changes.

Medication

Research has not established a specific medication as a standard treatment for buying-shopping disorder. A review of 21 medication studies found mixed results and concluded that evidence was insufficient to recommend a particular drug.^[1]

The later systematic review found that studies of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors—a class of antidepressants—and another medication, topiramate, did not demonstrate better CBSD outcomes than placebo, an inactive comparison treatment.^[3] Lack of demonstrated superiority does not prove that the treatments are equivalent or that no individual could benefit.

A 2025 review reported that no medication had regulatory approval—approval from a medicines regulator for a specific use—to treat behavioral addictions.^[6] Separate conditions may still need their own treatment. For example, medicines are among the main treatments for bipolar disorder. That is different from evidence that a medicine treats CBSD.^[11]

How Can You Choose a Manageable Next Step?

The best first step depends on the level of harm. You do not need to solve every financial and emotional problem at once.

If You Have Mild Concern

Start by observing the pattern. Consider recording what happened before shopping, how long you browsed, what you spent, how you felt afterward, and whether the item was used or returned. Spending records and attention to triggers have been included in studied CBT programs.^[4]

Choose one practical barrier, such as removing saved card information or turning off promotional notifications. Review ways to stop compulsive shopping and consider discussing the pattern with someone you trust.

If Spending Is Causing Debt or Relationship Conflict

Protect money for necessities before addressing unsecured purchases. Gather account information, pause new nonessential spending where possible, and tell a trusted person or professional the actual size of the problem.

Consider both financial support and shopping addiction treatment. Shopping-focused CBT may address triggers, thoughts, and behavior patterns.^[4] If seeking financial counseling, ask what help is offered with balances, payments, and creditor options, and what it would cost.

If cost is a barrier, ask mental health professionals about sliding-fee scales, where the price depends on income, as well as grants, scholarships, charity care, or payment plans. State mental health agencies, community health centers, school health centers, and peer groups may also provide routes to free or lower-cost help.^[16]

If the Situation Feels Severe or Dangerous

Seek prompt help when spending threatens food, housing, utilities, health care, or dependent family members, or when you cannot stop escalating purchases. Loss of control, debt, and interference with responsibilities are important signs of harm—not just the amount of money spent.^[3][2]

Spending alongside major mood changes, reduced need for sleep, racing thoughts, or unusual confidence may need assessment for a bipolar mood episode. Some people with bipolar disorder also experience psychosis, such as hearing or seeing things others do not or holding beliefs disconnected from reality.^[11][12]

If shopping changes after starting or changing medication, consider asking the prescriber whether the medicine could be involved. A review recommends regular checks for impulse-control problems in people with Parkinson’s disease, particularly when dopamine agonists are prescribed. Its findings should not be generalized to all medicines.^[13]

If someone controls your money, withholds essentials, or makes you afraid, consider telling a health professional or contacting an independent domestic-abuse service. You do not have to wait for an emergency to seek help. If considering leaving an abusive situation, seek advice about doing so safely.^[15]

In the United States, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE (800-799-7233) for free, confidential support, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Staff offer safety planning and crisis help and can connect you with local shelters and services.^[17]

If someone may monitor your phone or computer, consider using a trusted friend’s phone or a public computer to seek help. The Office on Women’s Health cautions that internet history cannot be completely erased from a phone or computer.^[17]

If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 or use the 988 Lifeline chat. The service offers free, confidential, judgment-free support 24 hours a day.^[18] Call 911 in a life-threatening emergency.^[12]

Supporting Someone With Compulsive Shopping

Consider beginning with specific, nonshaming observations rather than labels. For example, you could say: “I noticed several bills are overdue and you seem frightened about the packages. Can we look at what is happening together?”

Consider asking what shopping does for the person emotionally. Using buying to change internal feelings, seeking reward or relief, and buying for others to gain approval have been described in the literature.^[2][3][1] Listen without assuming their reasons match someone else’s.

The following are optional, practical offers to discuss—not proven treatments.

If the person agrees, you might offer to:

• Sit with the person while they list debts or cancel promotional messages
• Help locate a therapist or financial counselor
• Attend an appointment if invited
• Protect shared necessities through transparent agreements
• Store account records in a place both parties can access
• Make a plan for what to do during strong shopping urges

Discuss clear boundaries around shared money and necessities. Before paying debts, taking on account oversight, or sharing records, consider what each person agrees to and what limits are needed. Seek independent financial, legal, or safety advice when shared obligations or coercive control are involved. If abuse is disclosed, listen without blame and respect the person’s decisions.^[15]

If compulsive buying returns, consider reviewing what happened and discussing triggers and safeguards with the therapist. Relapse prevention—planning how to respond to a return of problematic buying—is part of studied CBT programs.^[4]

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