What is Scarcity marketing?

When a certain product gets really hard to find, people often act quickly before the opportunity is gone. Scarcity marketing is usually frequently used during events such as Black Friday when shoppers are encouraged to buy luxury products at a large discount while it lasts.

While holiday-specific price promotions are more circumstantial in nature, the very core psychological reasons that drive people to buy are the same. For example, Dr Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion highlights six principles that make a product more valuable to consumers–the scarcity principle is one of them. While these

In order to be marketable in the retail world, a retailer must present customers with an urgency to purchase. The CTA below tells shoppers that the item is low stock and can capture instant sales by persuading them into picking it up now.

A typical example of Scarcity Marketing

Retailers often run limited-time offers to encourage shoppers to make immediate buying decisions. For instance, a retailer might place attention-grabbing keywords (e.g., % off, now, new) in a limited time frame (by midnight, today only). Fear of missing out combined with intrigue will induce at least some users to seize the opportunity before it’s gone.