Anticipate Black Friday Syndrome

Shoppers go crazy to varying degrees at Black Friday promotions, limited quantity sales, celebrity appearances, highly publicized releases of state-of-the-art merchandise, and other events which draw crowds to a store. Be ready for regression to more primitive behavior.
     Researchers at University of Illinois and University of Nebraska-Lincoln observed adults shopping for fast fashion apparel which was in short supply. What the researchers saw was highly influenced by the shopper’s gender. The men were much more likely than the women to move along urgently, hunting for items that would be suitable, and then quickly retreating to the checkout station with their items in full view. Women were more likely to furtively gather the apparel they wanted, hoarding and even hiding their collected trove—behaviors more likely to lead to shoplifting.
     These gender differences between hunting and gathering resonate with humankind’s earliest history.
     Understand the psychology of crowds as part of preparing for having people fill your aisles at times your stock is in limited quantities:

• If shoppers will be waiting in line to enter the store or department, have store staff wearing name tags talk to the shoppers. Invite those in line to fill out a sweepstakes form with their name and other identifying information. Because they lose some of their individual identity and therefore their sense of individual responsibility, people in crowds are driven to actions they would not take otherwise. Name-to-name contact can head this off. 
• Distribute the special items throughout the shopping area. Your objective is to scatter out any crowding. When people are in crowds that they'd prefer to avoid, they get more likely to panic and strike out aggressively. 

     Scarcity does open opportunities for higher profit margins. In a classic consumer psychology study, participants were presented a set of Nabisco chocolate chip cookies and asked to answer questions like:

• How attractive are the cookies? 
• How much do you like the cookies? 
• How much would you be willing to pay for one of these cookies? 

     For some participants, two cookies were presented, while for the others, ten cookies were there. Which group gave higher ratings to the attractiveness, liking, and price willingness? Yes, the group that saw only two cookies.
     Customers accept paying substantially more for items that are scarce, as long as the customers accept that the reason for the scarcity is genuine, such as when a state-of-the-art product is first introduced or with Black Friday deep price discounts.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

Click below for more: 
Evolve the Most Basic Sales Pitches of All
Use Psychology for Shopper Crowd Management
Decide Whether to Limit Purchase Quantities