Why Are Gen Xers the Most Susceptible to Impulse Buying, and What Does the Future Hold for Impulse Shopping?

Younger Americans — at least relatively young, in some cases — appear to be most susceptible to impulse buying, according to Liquid Web data provided to Chain Store Age.

As CSA senior editor Dan Berthiaume outlined in poring over the survey results, Gen Xers came out on top in terms of being most likely to engage in an impulse-based purchase (at 17%), followed by slightly younger millennial shoppers (14%) and members of Gen Z (11%).

"The most common impulse purchases were clothing (43%), food and drink (41%), and electronics (41%). Gen Z respondents gravitated most toward food and drink (67%), while millennials favored clothing (47%) and Gen X respondents most often purchased home goods (45%)," Berthiaume wrote.

Amazon Dominates the Impulse Buying Marketplace, While Social Media Platforms Capture the Interest of Gen Z

It may come as little surprise that the e-commerce elephant in the room, namely Amazon, was the merchant most cited as the source of U.S. shoppers' impulse buying, with almost three-quarters (74%) of respondents quickly snagging a buy immediately after having been served an ad. YouTube and Facebook fell far behind of the bar set by the black-and-yellow brand, with 29% and 27% of respondents, respectively, indicating a post-ad buying decision concerning these platforms.

However, of those who did pull the trigger on a quick purchase following an ad, Gen Z respondents were by far more likely to do so on social media platforms — including YouTube (47%), Instagram (40%), Reddit (33%), and TikTok (27%).

Overall, about one-in-seven (or 14%) of respondents indicated they had made a recent online impulse buy — qualified as making a purchase within one minute of having seen an ad.

Other interesting findings from the study include:

• "Urgency-based tactics," as Berthiaume put it, including triggers such as flash sales and countdown timers, were cited by 70% of impulse buyers as the primary driver behind a purchase decision.
• Nearly all of those surveyed (85%) indicated regretting at least one impulsive online purchase, with Gen Z leading the pack in this regard (89%).
• Nearly half of respondents (42%) indicated that they were most likely to purchase impulsively in the evening, between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., with Fridays and Saturdays being the most common days to do so.
• One-fifth of those surveyed (20%) had spent more than $200 on an impulse buy.

Finally, fast and frictionless checkout was a logical necessity to facilitate impulse purchasing behavior. Nearly all (90%) of e-commerce businesses surveyed had implemented fast checkout procedures — and of these, 71% said doing so had improved customer retention.

On the consumer side, integration bugs presented the most common checkout issues (43%), with customer confusion over the process (38%), platform limitations (28%), and lack of developer support (22%) following.

"The data shows fast checkout isn’t just a convenience, it’s a catalyst for growth," Kyleigh Fitzgerald, director of product marketing at Liquid Web, said of the necessity for quick and easy checkout.

"This highlights a larger shift in consumer psychology. The future of ecommerce isn’t just fast—it’s instantaneous," Fitzgerald added.