Business Commons^™

The Effect Of Scarcity On Consumer Purchase Intentions, Jeremy Sanders, Stephanie Morgan

Innovate UNO

Can placing time constraints on promotions result in increased consumer response? According to Brannon and Brock (2001), when consumers are aware of product scarcity, they are more likely to exhibit greater purchase intentions. Our goal is to test if scarcity positively influences consumer preference when consumers are informed that the product is available for a limited time only. We ran an experiment that involved 100 actual Starbucks consumers. We handed out two different sets of questionnaires at five different Starbucks stores in St. Tammany Parish and Orleans Parish. In the experimental condition, consumers learned that Pumpkin Spice Latte would be …