What is impulse buying? Despite the marketing and lifestyle factors that encourage it today, impulse buying is not yet well understood. This is due in part to the longstanding absence of a compelling conceptualization of this distinctive type of purchasing behavior. This article reviews extant research on impulsive behavior and then introduces a new interpretation of impulse buying. Following this are the results of an exploratory study that investigates the phenomenology of consumers' impulse buying episodes. The research identifies: (1) the subjective experiences that distinguish the onset of the buying impulse, (2) how consumers cope with their impulsive urges to buy, and (3) the types of negative consequences they incur as a result of their impulsive buying.