Everything that has limits is something that we want more. It is proved in everyone’s practical life that all the things that are either limited or scarce tend to attract us more no matter what the use of the product is. The economic teaching that we have all received is of utmost truth, which says that the price and want of a commodity increase simultaneously with the decrease in supply. In short, everything that has a lesser supply than the wanted demand is usually expensive and scarce.
This glimpse is something that explains the base of the scarcity principle that we will now understand. Let us move forward and know everything related to this nature or idea of scarcity principle.
Scarcity Principle: What does it say?
The idea of the scarcity principle is founded by Dr. Robert Cialdini, according to which a commodity will turn more valuable if it is scarce. By scarcity, we mean that either the supply of the item is less or has the possibility of becoming unavailable soon enough. The thought of buying a product will attract us more if we are aware that it will turn out of stock or unavailable for us shortly. The commodity would become possibly unappealing if its availability was enough and we had the surety of it being available for a longer time.
Employing the scarcity principle in businesses
Several companies and brands employed the scarcity principle strategy to attract their probable customers to fill out forms related to a commodity or do anything else that the company desires them to do. For example, if we look at the airline companies, the travel fare is exceptionally fluctuating. Hence the customer tries to halt the bookings until a fair price is available, but if they get to know that only one seat is left, they would be willing to pay any fee that you want.
For now that we are pretty aware of what the scarcity principle means and its fair objective, let us move forward and learn about the brands who have successfully made use of this principle to promote and boost up their sales.
1. Snap Inc.
Snap Inc. is the head or the parent company of the very well-known site, Snapchat. Snapchat is being used worldwide, and its growth has been commendable. This company launched Snapchat spectacles that were efficient enough to record short videos of about 10 seconds by the user’s view.
If the user wore his Snapchat spectacles, he could make a video of what he is seeing. Snap Inc. launched the spectacles in September 2016, which created huge demand initially. The company, instead of selling these spectacles in stores online first decided to sell them through Snapbots. Snapbots are the vending machines for the spectacles which were Snapchat-themed.
The company made the best use of the scarcity principle in the sales of these spectacles through Snapbots. The company was well efficient in selling all these online or through stores in the city but planned to use this strategy of scarcity principle. There were extremely long lines to buy those spectacles and grab one before the set gets sold out.
The machine had only a specific number of spectacles, thus creating more excitement and willingness in the minds of the buyers. Thus, the strategy used and its marketing managed to pull many buyers, thus leading to success.
2. Nintendo
The Nintendo was yet another company that released its gaming console in 2006 with the scarcity principle idea in the sales. They started producing lesser products to make the customers more desperate and attracted towards the product, which ultimately proved to be a success.
The production increased significantly but was still unable to meet up the demand for three years. Finally, 48 million products are what’s sold in the market. People used to check on the possible days when the Wii game would be delivered and gathered in numbers to put their hands on first.
3. Starbucks
Starbucks has proven to be an established brand in the house of coffee. It released its “Unicorn Frappuccino” in a few cities full of colors and gained attention on the very release. It earned an incredible number of orders because it was made available for only a few days and Starbucks, went out of stock every day without any obstruction but over flooding orders.
Another idea where Starbucks used the scarcity principle was when it decided to serve coffee in red color cups, which is only limited to December, a small-time duration according to the customers. This strategy of scarcity principle managed and succeeded in bringing in an immense number of customers and drive them crazy to purchase one before the other.
4. Girlfriend Collective
Though the idea of Girlfriend Collective was a bit different but made the best use of the scarcity principle. The brand offered the customers a pair of $100 leggings for free if they paid the shipping cost for their order. Everything that the customer had to do was share a link to the website on Facebook, which was a great strategy to advertise and attract more customers.
By this marketing method, the company employed all the advertising costs to produce those leggings, which significantly affected the customers than the advertisements would have done. People tend to trust the products they see their knowns using than those shown by advertisements placed everywhere. The offer included a limited supply of free leggings as a freebie that was tempting and alluring. The brand sold 10,000 leggings pairs in a single day, and now you could think of the profits it made.
Be sure of what idea you deliver
Though the idea of the scarcity principle is simple and usually creates a huge demand for the products amongst the common public, be aware that the strategy could do the opposite if you somehow deliver the message that only a few units of products were ever processed. You need to attract the customers by making them believe that the teams were exceedingly minor and limited due to the high demand, which already sold the others.
