16/09/2010

False Shortage


A couple of days ago, a popular french newspaper ( click here for source ) featured a very intriguing article in it's economic section about how french Louis Vuitton Shops, victim of the label's success, will have to close an hour earlier till at least end of November as LVMH group was scared to be out of stocks of LV bags for the big Christmas shopping sessions. A quoted spokesman for LV even mentioned "how poor in stock" the label is.
It immediately made me click, LV in stock shortage ! and the whole article sounds like a barely modified press release. After discussing the subject around me, an editor in chief of a young and promising german publication sent me this message, oh so full of sense :

"A false shortage is a form of artificial scarcity induced by a supplier, often with the intent to elevate consumer demand above levels that may otherwise be achieved in the absence of such scarcity.

Companies may induce a false shortage to give rise to a common perception of the rarity or uniqueness of a product or service, when they are, in reality, neither precious, nor difficult to produce.

Suppliers often stand to gain from a false shortage, because it can help increase consumer demand without a corresponding decrease in price, and hence an entity's perceived value. This results in an increase in short-term profit."

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