Psych Design Series #1: The Law of Scarcity
I’ve been wanting and planning to start a story series soon about design principles with a mix of psychological concepts, since these two interests of mine spark a unique mix of what I currently enjoy doing for work. And there’s no better way to start it than now.
In this story series, I would like to name “Psych Design Principles”, I will be writing about any random design principle I can think about each week (in no particular order of importance). I just like to label them numerically.
So for this week, what I would like to talk about is the concept of “Scarcity”.
This shouldn’t be the first design principle I would like to share, but this topic makes sense to what I currently observed around due to the current global health crisis that started recently.
First let’s define what scarcity means.
Scarcity = the state of being scarce or in short supply; shortage.
According to UI-Patterns, if something is promoted as being scarce, we perceive it as more desirable and more valuable.
This design principle appears differently in many places, for example:
- Mall discounts during payday weekends
- Online store items sold with a note “only a few items left”
- High price on unique items (e.g. paintings)
- Vegetables/ fruits with low supply have a higher price, than those in season
- Low fare Airline tickets (if you pre-book, and during specific months only)
- Live TV Product Bargains
There are countless other marketing strategies out there that applies this principle, to make people buy their products.
With the recent commotion due to the rapidly-spreading virus, and the quarantine period that started few days ago, I notice how people in our community are panic-buying stuff, because they think food and other important household items will soon be scarce due to the quarantine order being implemented.
If you notice, people decide quickly to buy something if they know it will be unavailable soon. I also notice this with myself, whenever I buy meat or any useful grocery item that is on sale. I see a greater value on buying a household need at a discounted price, which means I can buy more with lesser amount, and thus saved more. And since I know good buys will not last long on the grocery shelf, I will think it’s better to buy it now, while stocks are still aplenty. See, its the law of scarcity taking effect.
Another example is from a now-popular T-shirt brand, NickAutomatic, which is known to print its seasonally designed t-shirts at a limited number only. So, if you missed out on buying a specific design you want, you can’t buy it again. Like how I missed the JIGSAW design I badly wanted years ago, when I was still a fan of horror movies. After learning a lot about UI/UX, I then realized they just did their marketing strategy very right ever since.
With regards to digital experience, you will notice this principle in most online stores, where a discounted item is shown with a timer counting the days or hours you have left to be able to purchase that seemingly valuable item. This scenario doesn’t just happen on online stores, its also evident in service / training based products, where if you subscribe NOW or buy that training video NOW, you will get it a very discounted rate, versus if you buy it a later date. If you notice, they are using the scarcity of time here. The prospective buyer will feel the risk of not buying that something now because the price will most likely get higher later, and who knows when will the price be lower again.
There are still a lot of scenarios that depict this principle, but my time is scarce, and I have to sleep now. So feel free to share some scenarios you have observed where the principle of scarcity is applied — in below response, if you have time to spare. Thanks a lot!
