Behaviour Modelling via Scarcity - Deepstash
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Scarcity

Scarcity

Scarcity is an influential driving force which can heavily influence how and why customers purchase a product. Us humans are driven to have as much as we can, and seeing something scarce mentally increases the demand we have for it, even if it has no use for us.

It comes in 4 flavours:

  • Quantity
  • Time
  • Access
  • Rarity

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Quantity

By constraining quantity, we emphasize it's limited availability.

Artificial constraints break user trust and opinion about companies, so using this as a tactic requires strategy.

Another point to note that quantity scarcity should not induce stress. Scarcity should be used for luxury items, and not for commodities which will lead to stressed customers which impacts us in the long run.

We can instead focus on the craft. "30 other people are looking at this item". This drives a narrative where a user feels the product is scarce due to it's demand, not it's actual supply.

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COGLODE

Make your scarcity valuable, not stressful

COGLODE

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Time

When time's ticking down, we take mental shortcuts. We're all used to seeing the "Offer ends in 2 hours, get your x% off now!" branding on most sites. This comes off as artificial most times, as the message communicated conveys that the user is lucky to have the offer, which ends up becoming cliche.

Highlighting time restrictions when they're made to ensure quality of service leads to higher stickiness and loyalty. An example of where this works would be in seasonal products, or one-off goods.

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COGLODE

Motivate customers by emphasizing the limited time remaining in which to act.

COGLODE

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Access

Restricting access to consumers is counter-intuitive. Why would you want a customer to not have access to a feature?

But imagine a system where a user gets a feature unlocked for being in the xth percentile. This drives up the value for a feature, which in turn increases scarcity. 

Doing this selectively for certain feature/customer segments is the key. Over-doing this would straight up tank a product.

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COGLODE

The concept of Scarcity lies at the core of economics, and greatly influences perceptions of value, status and our competitive desire to attain certain items over others.

Unfortunately, it's also one of the more poorly-applied concepts out there, along with Defaults and Loss Aversion.

Far better an approach is to use it creatively to highlight your unique value.

COGLODE

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CURATED BY

reversentropy

Entropically curious 👁️‍🗨️

CURATOR'S NOTE

Marketing is a hard field to tackle. Every field has a different approach based on its limitations. I feel that understanding the psychology behind the purchases we make and our decisions leads to better positioning and understanding of why we buy products

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