The strategy behind product shortages
Incredible products with a lot of demand and very little supply. What business opportunities does the controversial scarcity marketing bring?
In recent years there has been a phenomenon where mass consumer brands are promoting collaborations with artists or sports icons, creating incredible products but... in small quantities.
In other words, collectibles, cult objects, which in many cases, due to their demand, reach sidereal resale prices. This can be called "scarcity marketing", where far from using these products to make a successful sale, brand building is generated, appealing to the fact that this exposure has an impact on all other products (not scarce). This means that the brand is being talked about, without the need to appeal to mass advertising or traditional media.
For example, Nike collaborations with singer Travis Scott, made his sneakers reach over 1200 dollars in resale. Another case is the Supreme brand, which with its constant mix of sports and luxury brands, forms endless lines of buyers who camp out days before its launches.
Now, why does less product generate more leads? Imagine publishing these scarce, hyper-requested products, where in many cases there are 50 or 100 units of them, in a traditional eCommerce. Clearly they would be sold out in hours (even seconds) and what would the 101st user who enters the site see: a sold out sign... and so on with the thousands of users who came after them. Regardless of this, it also opens the door for one person to purchase all the products and eliminates the brand's objective, which is to reach the final public, with the list price (not to encourage resale from the source itself).
That is why there are already dynamics such as raffles, which are nothing more than a previous raffle, where all interested parties sign up (they get their chance to participate) and then the possibility of acquiring each of the products is drawn at random. Although this was first done in stores, there are now online solutions and this is where lead generation starts to make sense.
Friday 11:59hs, more than 10,000 users on the brand's website (during the previous days it was announced through social networks and email marketing that this was going to happen) waiting for the form to appear for only 15 minutes at 12hs, to be able to access 1 of the 60 products available, where each one of them left their name, address, email, phone, instagram, ID and size. Yes, this marketing miracle happens every time a brand puts on sale a scarce product in high demand. Only 60 products (that will be marketed in seconds) gives the brand thousands of segmented leads (age, address) and qualified (size, interest) with more than one way to contact them (email, phone, networks).
Clearly, if they are not acted upon, they remain data that accumulate launch after launch. It is vital to have tracking pixels in both subscription and payment (separating leads from customers) and platforms that allow us to take all this information and transform it not only into reports but also into actionable mailing lists and segments to work on social media campaigns.
While not all brands are Nike and have collaborations with celebrities, many have products that "fly" or sell faster than they are produced. Sorting out scarcity and transforming it into opportunity can be a first step to stop displaying "out of stock" signs and generate hyper-customized segments that help market the non-scarce product.
