The scarcity principle is an economic theory positing that scarce goods which are also in high demand cause an imbalance in the supply and demand equilibrium. However, it can also be applied to consumer and social psychology, and it is these applications that we will discuss in the rest of this article. The scarcity principle posits that the more difficult it is to obtain a product, the more valuable that product then becomes.
Understanding the scarcity principle
With that said, the scarcity principle states that consumers value something more if it is scarce. A similar definition was provided by author Robert B. Cialdini in his acclaimed book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. He noted that “opportunities seem more valuable to us when their availability is limited.”
In the context of consumer purchase behavior, the scarcity principle is a motivator. Since consumers believe the scarce product will soon become unavailable, they value it more and are more likely to purchase it when compared to a situation where the product is abundant. Armed with this knowledge, brands use the scarcity principle to manipulate consumers into purchasing their products.
Why is the scarcity principle effective?
Cialdini suggests there are two main drivers of the scarcity principle.
1 – Consumers create mental short-cuts to deal with a complex world
Otherwise known as heuristics, these mental-short cuts are used to estimate the value of an item based on its scarcity. Rare items that are difficult to obtain are assumed to be worth more than abundant items that are easier to obtain.
This heuristic is valid most of the time, but in some cases, it is invalid.
2 – Scarcity limits opportunities, which reduces the freedom to choose
For better or worse, humans evolved to react when freedom of choice is limited or reduced. This is a survival instinct stemming from the fact that the impact of a loss is more severe than the impact of a comparable gain.
As a result, consumers are always on the lookout for potential losses and are hardwired to keep their options open. Fewer options mean less freedom of choice and the risk that as resources become less available, they may not be available at all in the future.
Whenever freedom of choice is threatened, the need for the consumer to retain their freedom makes them desire the product even more. As access to a product is threatened, in other words, the consumer makes a concerted and vigorous effort to possess that product.
Examples of brands that used the scarcity principle
Let’s conclude this article by having a look at some case studies where the scarcity principle has been used effectively:
Nintendo
Nintendo is a Japanese consumer electronics and video company founded in 1889 as Nintendo Karuta – a manufacturer of decorated, hand-made playing cards. By the 1980s, the company made significant investments in a rising technology: video games. It then produced popular titles like Donkey Kong and, later on, Super Mario Bros. Today Nintendo generates revenues through video game franchise sales, e-commerce, and the Unfold System.
When the Wii was released in 2006, mass hysteria ensued as consumers clamored to purchase one. This continued for three years before the supply was comparable to demand.
To increase scarcity, Nintendo capped production volume over that period and advised consumers to “stalk the UPS driver” to determine when a new shipment of Wiis was about to be delivered.
Starbucks
Starbucks is a retail company that sells beverages (primarily consisting of coffee-related drinks) and food. In 2018, Starbucks had 52% of company-operated stores vs. 48% of licensed stores. The revenues for company-operated stores accounted for 80% of total revenues, thus making Starbucks a chain businessmodel.
The coffee chain announced the Unicorn Frappuccino in April 2017 via an Instagram post with the caption “Available for a limited time at participating stores in the US, Canada & Mexico.”
The hashtag #unicornfrappuccino was posted nearly 160,000 times in response to the perceived value of the novel, time-limited beverage.
Groupon
Groupon is a two-sided marketplace where local consumers meet deals from local merchants. The company makes money by selling local and travel services and goods. Its value proposition based on attracting local customers to local merchants is quite compelling. Local consumers instead get savings and discounts that they would not get elsewhere. The company measures its financial success in gross billings and revenues growth. Groupon generated over $2.8 billion in 2017, by selling its goods and services directly via its websites and mobile app, and indirectly via third-party affiliate sites, who get a commission for each sale.
Discount service platform Groupon is a master of using the scarcity principle to persuade consumers to take advantage of its offers.
Like Starbucks, scarcity is created because each deal is available for a limited time only. Groupon uses social proof as an extra motivator, displaying the number of consumers who have purchased the deal and rated it highly. Humans interpret scarcity combined with social proof to mean that the product must be worth having since most others appear to be purchasing it.
Booking.com
Booking Holdings is the company the controls six main brands that comprise Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, Rentalcars.com, and OpenTable. Over 76% of the company revenues in 2017 came primarily via travel reservations commisions and travel insurance fees. Almost 17% came from merchant fees, and the remaining revenues came from advertising earned via KAYAK. As distributionstrategy, the company spent over $4.5 billion in performance-based and brand advertising.
Online reservation platform Booking.com allows users to book a range of accommodations including hotels, apartments, holiday homes, and motels.
For applicable properties, Booking.com shows the number of rooms left with additional text highlighted in red such as “Only 2 rooms left at this price on our site” or “3 other people looked for your dates in the last 24 hours”.
Key takeaways:
The scarcity principle posits that the more difficult a product is to obtain, the more valuable that product then becomes. In the context of consumer behavior, the scarcity principle motivates the consumer to purchase.
The scarcity principle is caused by consumers creating heuristics in an attempt to value items accurately. Scarcity also reduces freedom of choice which causes the individual to desire the product even more.
The scarcity principle has been used by many brands to successfully market their products. These include Starbucks, Groupon, Nintendo, and Booking.com.
Convergent thinking occurs when the solution to a problem can be found by applying established rules and logical reasoning. Whereas divergent thinking is an unstructured problem-solving method where participants are encouraged to develop many innovative ideas or solutions to a given problem. Where convergent thinking might work for larger, mature organizations where divergent thinking is more suited for startups and innovative companies.
Second-order thinking is a means of assessing the implications of our decisions by considering future consequences. Second-order thinking is a mental model that considers all future possibilities. It encourages individuals to think outside of the box so that they can prepare for every and any eventuality. It also discourages the tendency for individuals to default to the most obvious choice.
Systems thinking is a holistic means of investigating the factors and interactions that could contribute to a potential outcome. It is about thinking non-linearly, and understanding the second-order consequences of actions and input into the system.
Vertical thinking, on the other hand, is a problem-solving approach that favors a selective, analytical, structured, and sequential mindset. The focus of vertical thinking is to arrive at a reasoned, defined solution.
First-principles thinking – sometimes called reasoning from first principles – is used to reverse-engineer complex problems and encourage creativity. It involves breaking down problems into basic elements and reassembling them from the ground up. Elon Musk is among the strongest proponents of this way of thinking.
The ladder of inference is a conscious or subconscious thinking process where an individual moves from a fact to a decision or action. The ladder of inference was created by academic Chris Argyris to illustrate how people form and then use mental models to make decisions.
The Six Thinking Hats model was created by psychologist Edward de Bono in 1986, who noted that personality type was a key driver of how people approached problem-solving. For example, optimists view situations differently from pessimists. Analytical individuals may generate ideas that a more emotional person would not, and vice versa.
Second-order thinking is a means of assessing the implications of our decisions by considering future consequences. Second-order thinking is a mental model that considers all future possibilities. It encourages individuals to think outside of the box so that they can prepare for every and eventuality. It also discourages the tendency for individuals to default to the most obvious choice.
Lateral thinking is a business strategy that involves approaching a problem from a different direction. The strategy attempts to remove traditionally formulaic and routine approaches to problem-solving by advocating creative thinking, therefore finding unconventional ways to solve a known problem. This sort of non-linear approach to problem-solving, can at times, create a big impact.
Moonshot thinking is an approach to innovation, and it can be applied to business or any other discipline where you target at least 10X goals. That shifts the mindset, and it empowers a team of people to look for unconventional solutions, thus starting from first principles, by leveraging on fast-paced experimentation.
The concept of cognitive biases was introduced and popularized by the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972. Biases are seen as systematic errors and flaws that make humans deviate from the standards of rationality, thus making us inept at making good decisions under uncertainty.
Bounded rationality is a concept attributed to Herbert Simon, an economist and political scientist interested in decision-making and how we make decisions in the real world. In fact, he believed that rather than optimizing (which was the mainstream view in the past decades) humans follow what he called satisficing.
The Dunning-Kruger effect describes a cognitive bias where people with low ability in a task overestimate their ability to perform that task well. Consumers or businesses that do not possess the requisite knowledge make bad decisions. What’s more, knowledge gaps prevent the person or business from seeing their mistakes.
The Mandela effect is a phenomenon where a large group of people remembers an event differently from how it occurred. The Mandela effect was first described in relation to Fiona Broome, who believed that former South African President Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s. While Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and died 23 years later, Broome remembered news coverage of his death in prison and even a speech from his widow. Of course, neither event occurred in reality. But Broome was later to discover that she was not the only one with the same recollection of events.
The bandwagon effect tells us that the more a belief or idea has been adopted by more people within a group, the more the individual adoption of that idea might increase within the same group. This is the psychological effect that leads to herd mentality. What in marketing can be associated with social proof.
The PESTEL analysis is a framework that can help marketers assess whether macro-economic factors are affecting an organization. This is a critical step that helps organizations identify potential threats and weaknesses that can be used in other frameworks such as SWOT or to gain a broader and better understanding of the overall marketing environment.
The STEEP analysis is a tool used to map the external factors that impact an organization. STEEP stands for the five key areas on which the analysis focuses: socio-cultural, technological, economic, environmental/ecological, and political. Usually, the STEEP analysis is complementary or alternative to other methods such as SWOT or PESTEL analyses.
The STEEPLE analysis is a variation of the STEEP analysis. Where the step analysis comprises socio-cultural, technological, economic, environmental/ecological, and political factors as the base of the analysis. The STEEPLE analysis adds other two factors such as Legal and Ethical.
Porter’s Five Forces is a model that helps organizations to gain a better understanding of their industries and competition. Published for the first time by Professor Michael Porter in his book “Competitive Strategy” in the 1980s. The model breaks down industries and markets by analyzing them through five forces.
A SWOT Analysis is a framework used for evaluating the business’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It can aid in identifying the problematic areas of your business so that you can maximize your opportunities. It will also alert you to the challenges your organization might face in the future.
In the 1970s, Bruce D. Henderson, founder of the Boston Consulting Group, came up with The Product Portfolio (aka BCG Matrix, or Growth-share Matrix), which would look at a successful businessproduct portfolio based on potential growth and market shares. It divided products into four main categories: cash cows, pets (dogs), question marks, and stars.
First proposed by accounting academic Robert Kaplan, the balanced scorecard is a management system that allows an organization to focus on big-picture strategic goals. The four perspectives of the balanced scorecard include financial, customer, business process, and organizational capacity. From there, according to the balanced scorecard, it’s possible to have a holistic view of the business.
A blue ocean is a strategy where the boundaries of existing markets are redefined, and new uncontested markets are created. At its core, there is valueinnovation, for which uncontested markets are created, where competition is made irrelevant. And the cost-value trade-off is broken. Thus, companies following a blue ocean strategy offer much more value at a lower cost for the end customers.
Businesses use scenario planning to make assumptions on future events and how their respective business environments may change in response to those future events. Therefore, scenario planning identifies specific uncertainties – or different realities and how they might affect future business operations. Scenario planning attempts at better strategic decision-making by avoiding two pitfalls: underprediction, and over-prediction.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
