Drunk shopping: bad for your liver, billions for the economy
If you’ve ever woken up after a night on the town, checked the ol’ credit card bill and found an expensive surprise ― some new clothes or something as unusual as a new clarinet, as one Guardian writer fessed up to ― you can take solace in one thing, at least: you’re not alone, according to new data on the drunk shopping habits of consumers.
According to Finder, one in six of us shopped under the influence last year, part of a staggering $14-billion drunk shopping economy. The average drunk shopper dishes out about $309 a year on drunk shopping, mostly on clothes, shoes and accessories. That was followed by food, cigarettes, alcohol and gambling to round out the top five.
“So, what to make of this?” asks Inc.’s Bill Murphy Jr. “Well, as a person who may or may not have been in a bar or two once or twice in his life, I’m going to profess very little surprise at the idea that people who have been drinking might be inclined to buy food, cigarettes or more alcohol. You’ll forgive me if I don’t take our time to commission a separate field study to figure that one out.”
As for the top category of shoes, clothes and accessories, Murphy continued, “I think we can all assume fairly safely that a lot of that drunk clothes shopping is done with a glass of their favourite beverage in one hand and a smartphone in the other.”
Maybe most surprising, though, is simply how much tipsy consumerism has fallen off since the start of the pandemic. In 2019, the same survey estimated a whopping $45.3 billion was spent on drunk shopping. In 2020, it was $44.9 billion. If anything, the drunk shopping industry might be crashing ― another sign, perhaps, of inflation’s vicious sting.
Content written by Kieran Delamont for Worklife, a partnership between Ahria Consulting and London Inc. To view this content in newsletter form, click here.