'Are you buying what you need?': Holiday shopping advice from a marketing expert

A woman holds presents in this undated stock image. (Jill Wellington/Pexels.com)

Christmas is often the most expensive time of the year for Canadians – but it doesn’t have to be.

Yuanfang Lin, a marketing professor at the University of Guelph, studies how consumers process information.

“Psychologically, individuals tend to have the urge to meet or even exceed expectations when it comes to gift purchases,” he said.

The fear of feeling like the Grinch can lead shoppers to overspend, making impulse purchases which ultimately put them overbudget.

“Making the holiday purchase a very unique marketing phenomenon and making the last-minute purchase a very, very, interesting phenomena,” Lin mused.

He said there’s four key marketing tactics shoppers should lookout for.

The first is exclusivity: the threat of limited time or limited supplies.

The second is inclusivity: the push that may drive customers to buy within a certain time frame, or pick up more items than they intended so they can qualify for free shipping.

Lin said if consumers feel like they’re being encouraged to buy more in order to get free shipping, they should make sure they aren’t spending more than the shipping itself would actually cost.

The third tactic is hyper-personalized advertisements, which use online cookies or browsing histories to try to convince someone to buy an item they have already searched for or shown interest in previously.

Lin said the final ploy utilized by stores is “gamification.” Companies will try to lure shoppers using fun activities or promises of prizes.

“These kinds of recommendations are designed to encourage purchases. To maximize and encourage you to increase spending, to maximize the profit from the company's perspective,” he said.

One of the best things a shopper can do, according to Lin, is critically assessing all potential purchases. “Always ask yourself, are you buying what you need? Versus buying just for the deals.”

Lin said it will be interesting to see how the postal strike, along with the GST/HST tax break, will change consumer behaviour this holiday season.

“I think it will incentivize quite a few consumers to postpone their purchase or wait until this moment.”