On Black Friday, thousands of vendors entice with tempting offers. They use tricks to persuade people to make a purchase.
Around Black Friday or Cyber Week, most people are looking for deals. Everything looks tempting, and you want to buy something to benefit from the offers.
But behind the desire to “want to buy” lies a sophisticated method known as the “scarcity principle.”
The Scarcity Principle Encourages People to Buy
Most of you are likely familiar with the deals that aggressively advertise themselves as being particularly limited, rare, or almost sold out. Amazon particularly likes to use such systems:
- Lightning deals are only available in limited quantities and a bar shows how many percent have already been sold.
- For some products, it ominously states, “Only 3 pieces available.”
- Additionally, there are constant emails or messages indicating that the deals are almost over and you must check them out.
In such urgency, many feel convinced to reach for a product. After all, they are told from everywhere that it must be rare or almost gone.
What is behind it? Peter Kenning, head of the Business Administration chair at the University of Düsseldorf and a professor with a focus on marketing, explains in the online magazine Impulse that behind such scarce offers lies the scarcity principle. Because “the scarcer a product, the more attractive customers perceive it to be.” But if there are suddenly significantly fewer, then “the product that is unavailable or particularly scarce becomes more desirable.”
This appeals to people’s emotions: People fear missing out and buy the items. After all, limited items are always more sought after than those that are readily available. The effectiveness of this principle can be seen in teleshopping, where one can watch how the provider’s stock depletes.
The hype around scarce items is something some may still remember from the PS5 shortage a year ago. Scalpers snatched thousands of consoles and sold them at high prices. Meanwhile, scalpers are left with the PS5 consoles.
What are the limits of this trick? Such scarcities also have limits, as NDR explains:
- For example, Zalando was warned for advertising having only one pair of shoes in stock. However, one could add and purchase any number of pairs in the shop.
- Booking.com was sued for misleading customers because the portal claimed it only had one room left available. The room was still easily accessible through other sites.
Such actions are, as NDR explains, misleading to consumers.
When Buying, Also Consider Full-Price Items
What is the second problem? Often a second issue arises. Many people, when they are already in a buying frenzy, toss in a few items in the shopping cart that are not on sale, but that they wanted to buy or try out anyway.
Quickly, one ends up buying things one didn’t even want. Often referred to as full-price items that are not reduced.
Beware of the following products: There are quite a number of items you should not buy on Black Friday. Because you can get them later much cheaper. Which ones they are, you can read directly with us on MeinMMO:
Black Friday: These 7 items you should definitely not buy on Amazon and Co.
