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EFFECTS OF SCARCITY APPEALS, SELLER CREDIBILITY, PRODUCT TYPE, AND CONSUMER ORIENTATION ON CONSUMER PURCHASE INTENTION
Many authors and practitioners have suggested that scarcity increases a product’s perceived value, because scarcity affects availability of a product and people assume that what is less common is more valuable (Cialdini, 1987). Communicating such restrictions on product availability is a common advertising tactic intended to motivate consumer purchasing behavior by arousing product scarcity perceptions. To further our knowledge on scarcity effects researchers indicate the need to examine contextual or individual factors which are related to demand-caused scarcity and/or supply-caused scarcity. Corresponding to the call for further research this study empirically examines seller credibility, product type, and consumer orientation as moderators on the relationship between scarcity and purchase intention. Extant research have found that both excess demand and limited supply lead to increased product choice, but engender distinct inference processes (Hsuan, Chien & Tzu, 2012). Scarcity can be based on changes in demand or supply. Demand scarcity arises when supply cannot meet market demand. Advertisers may emphasize this limited availability in positive terms by claiming “only while stocks last”. Demand scarcity messages, either “in popular demand” or “over sold” indicates consumers that a product’s popularity is creating demand that exceeds the product’s available supply (Herpen, Pieters, & Zeelenberg 2009; Verhallen, 1982). Supply scarcity suggests that the product is exclusive, and affects consumer preferences through perceptions of the symbolic benefits the product can provide, including uniqueness (Snyder, 1992) and social status (Lynn, 1992). Advertisements convey supply scarcity when marketers produce quantities of a new product less than enough to meet initial demand and distribute a competitive number of units to individual retail store. Researchers have indicated the need to examine contextual or individual influences on the distinct type of scarcity to gain further insight into these two scarcity effects. This research examines the moderating effect of seller credibility, product type, and consumer orientation on the relationship between scarcity and purchase intention. The first research objective is to examine if scarcity effect is stronger when a seller is more credible than not. The second research objective is to examine if demand scarcity produces a stronger purchase intention for utilitarian products as opposed to symbolic products. In contrast, supply scarcity will be valued more highly for symbolic products, because the product’s limited availability can deliver consumers symbolic benefits such as uniqueness (Snyder, 1992) and social status (Lynn, 1992). The third research objective is to examine if demand scarcity produces a stronger purchase intention for consumers with prevention-focus than those with promotion-focus. Similarly, the research also examines if supply scarcity produces a stronger purchase intention for consumers with promotion-focus than those with prevention-focus. This research employs a laboratory experiment to empirically test the research hypotheses. The experiment manipulates scarcity, seller credibility, and product type and it measures consumer orientation as either promotion-focus or prevention-focus. Thus it employs a 3 (scarcity: demand scarcity, supply scarcity, no scarcity) x 2 (high credibility, low credibility) x 2 (utilitarian product, symbolic product) between-subjects design. Results of hypothesis tests and implications will be discussed.
