Anatomy of an Online Flash Sale Addict

Mary DeRosier had a choice. This summer, during one of the worst heat waves in Chicago’s history, the 60-year-old music teacher had to decide whether to go on vacation to someplace cooler or stay at home and buy antiques from home shopping website One Kings Lane. She chose the latter. “I didn’t want to go on a trip because I didn’t want to get bed bugs and I didn’t want to get yelled at by some flight attendant,” she says. “I decided I’m going to spend my vacation money on shopping instead. And I’m telling you I had plenty of fun.”

DeRosier jokingly calls checking the site every day for deals “my biggest problem and my biggest joy” and “part of my midlife crisis.” She’s not alone. Some 15 million Americans suffer from shopping addiction, according to the American Psychological Association. “Research suggests the Internet is a really fertile ground for the development and maintenance of compulsive buying disorder,” says Dr. April Benson, a psychologist in New York and author of To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Overshop and How to Stop. “The ease, the 24-7-ness of it, the anonymity and the vast array of products—all of those factor into the disorder.”