Why hide it? Everybody knows it, I am an impulsive buyer!
I have always suspected that the salesgirls [okay, let me say ‘salespersons’, why be gender specific?] can always instinctively spot an impulsive buyer. They know that he is going to be swayed completely by the novelty and they take care to show him what’s new. Within minutes he is seen heading towards the payment counter.
My home is full of things I really do not need, never needed and, what is even worse, I sometimes discover that I had bought that item long time ago. Such items include CDs, a lot of stationery, pens of all sizes, shapes and colours. Recently I discovered an unopened box that contained a shirt I had bought some time ago. Marriages of my son and daughter in less than two years had led to a lot of shopping.
With my grand-daughter’s birth the impulse buying received a further fillip. My wife joined me in being impulsive buyer. Recently we spent some time in Durban, SA where we entered a toy shop and came out almost two hours later! It was a huge shop; it offered so many products that the grandparents went bonkers on a buying spree.
Book shops make me go crazy. I feel like picking up a lot of books. I have a big library which my wife fondly calls ‘The Library of Unread Books’. I visit Crossword stores frequently and for Marathi books to Majestic Book Depot at Thane. I consider these as ‘safe places’ because no salesperson in these two book stores attempts to ‘sell’ you anything. They are lost in their work of rearranging books on disorganised book racks. Sometimes the Majestic Book Depot staff actually excels in putting off customers. Oxford stores seem to be very friendly in comparison and a book lover like me ends up buying more books from them. But even in Majestic or Crossword I have never come out without buying two books.
Following my retirement I am trying to control my impulsive buying. When I go out I do not carry that most harmful instrument called ‘Credit Card’. I have started writing my daily 
expenses [an often stopped too]. But the real skill lies in not saying ‘Yes’ when you want to say ‘No’. I recently discovered that there is a book by that title!
A new mall ‘Korum’ has opened just a few meters away, I can walk down to the mall without considering it an ‘exercise’. They say that the mall will soon have a book shop and that it will probably open next week. I might get the ‘Don’t Say Yes....’ book there!
VivekLabels: Impulsive buying
