The Role of Scarcity Communications in Retailing on Consumer Behavior and Psychological Wellbeing

People are exposed to information and communications of scarcity almost on a daily basis. It can be scarcity induced as a marketing technique to increase consumers’ interest in purchasing a product or a service that comes in limited availability, but it can also be scarcity caused by other macro-level factors, such as natural impediments, political sanctions, or economic recession. In any of these cases, scarcity can lead to consumers’ anger, disappointment, and even physical aggression. Hence, understanding the effect of scarcity of communications on consumers’ psychological well-being remains an important gap in communications and marketing literature. This study uses experimental methods to investigate the relationship between scarcity communications and consumer psychological well-being, suggesting causal evidence that scarcity communications, as opposed to surplus—that we use as a control condition—can significantly affect consumers’ psychological well-being, by deteriorating it. Findings from the experiment are important in providing insights to not only marketing and communications academics but also policymakers and marketing practitioners.