“Scarcity mindset”, that’s the speciality of assistant professor Caroline Roux
She teaches marketing at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University.
Roux describes it as the feeling of “not having enough,” or FOMO as they say, the “fear of missing out”.
And it’s the consequences of these feelings on consumer behaviour that she investigates.
At this time of year, the FOMO is a major factor in many people’s lives.
“Consumers tend to think more in terms of scarcity, or not having enough time, not having enough money, not enough product that they might want to buy as gifts, and they also tend to become a bit more competitive and that’s why you tend to see a bit more pushing and shoving and honking in the parking lot as people become a bit more aggressive to get to what they want to do.”
In Canada, there have been changes over the past decade, where the Black Friday phenomenon, once limited to just the United States and their tradition of increasingly frenzied shopping the day after Thanksgiving at the end of November.
It is now a major event in Canada.
Shopping is an experience many Canadians say they dread at this time of year and more people are now shopping online © The Canadian Press)
She says this development has changed Canadian behaviour.
“I think it’s made people start shopping for the holidays a bit earlier than what they were used to, and also chasing sales earlier.” she says.
Perhaps this is a positive change as it may reduce the anxiety and FOMO, as more of the responsibilities and purchases are dealt with earlier.
“In marketing at least we know that scarcity-related appeals have a very powerful draw on consumers; the fear of missing out is a bit related to that, the idea that if you don’t buy it now you’re going to miss out on a chance to save money, or miss out on a premium item that you could not normally afford and now that’s on sale, and so it does have a powerful pull on consumers.”
How can one combat this way of thinking, I ask Caroline Roux, and along with becoming aware that you may be spiralling into this thinking, she advises turning it around.
“So instead of focusing on what you don’t have, focusing on what you do have, and the fact that it’s also a time of year that we spend with more friends, more family, enjoy more food, more good times.”
