Spot it
Scarcity and urgency
Also called FOMO, fake countdown
Things feel more valuable when they seem to be running out, and urgency cuts your thinking time.
Scarcity raises how much we want something: people rated identical cookies as more desirable from a jar of 2 than a jar of 10. Urgency adds a deadline, so you skip comparing. Together they push a fast yes. Sometimes the shortage is real, but the feeling arrives either way. In 2019 the UK's CMA got six big hotel booking sites to commit to stop giving false impressions of a room's availability or popularity.
What the research says
Well supported
- Worchel, Lee & Adewole (1975). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32(5), 906–914Classic cookie-jar study; the scarcity effect is widely replicated in later work.
Well supported
- Competition and Markets Authority (2019). 'Hotel booking sites to make major changes after CMA probe', GOV.UK press release, 6 Feb 2019Regulator action, not a study. Expedia, Booking.com, Agoda, Hotels.com, ebookers and trivago committed to stop false impressions of availability or popularity. Undertakings are not an admission of breaking the law.
Where you'll see it
- 'Only 2 left!'
- Countdown timers
- Limited drops and 'last chance'
- 'Act now, last batch' emails from rival brands
Your defence
Ask: if this were still here tomorrow, would I still want it at this price?