[dyladan]

Creating a false sense of urgency is a cornerstone of modern marketing. The only difference between this and any other marketing campaign is that you just happened to catch them this time.

This is just like when you go to an electronics store and they put the super expensive tv (almost) nobody buys right next to the still very expensive but comparably more modest model. You are more likely to buy that second tv even if costs more than you initially budgeted because your brain tells you that this is the cheaper model with _almost_ the same features as the flagship tv.

For another example, many ecommerce sites will list the number available in stock if it is low, and sometimes will just say "few available" without specifying a number. This creates the same (sometimes false) sense of urgency.

[jordancolburn]

Yeah, but to stick with the analogy, isn't this more like putting out empty boxes of TVs that have already been sold and having employees dressed as customers frantically buying them in front of regular customers.

Thanks for reading btw, and thanks to whoever posted it here.

[hkmurakami]

Which apparently is done at some of the new hip restaurants.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/08/1...

[seanp2k2]

Hmm, I wonder if Amazon was doing this with their new store at Santana Row in SJ: https://imgur.com/a/qSVYG

[dyladan]

If an electronics retailer could do this at no additional cost, I have no doubt that they would.

[jmdocherty]

...or like the employee just shouting rather loudly across the showroom floor to a colleague:

"Hey Joe we just sold another one of the <insert TV you happen to be looking at>. That's the 3rd one today - we better order some more before we run out of stock"

[bigiain]

"Here at stooge.io, we're disrupting the Shilling industry with our AI driven machine learning auto-shilling platform. Our PlantBot(tm) is a blockchain auditable marketing urgency generation tool."

[alexasmyths]

"The only difference between this and any other marketing campaign is that you just happened to catch them this time."

I'm not sure this is fair.

By displaying false information, they are point-blank lying. That's misinformation. It should be illegal - it could be.

Some other tricks such as 'creating very expensive items which they never expect to sell' as a cognitive 'price anchor' - well, not quite the same thing.

I suggest there is a distinction between falsehoods and other forms of tricks.

In the end it probably doesn't matter, but I wouldn't mind one bit if there was some consumer protections concerning this.

[curun1r]

> By displaying false information, they are point-blank lying. That's misinformation.

As a devil's advocate, despite the presentation being scummy, there's definite consumer value to seeing tickets that sold. It helps correct an information imbalance between sellers and buyers. If all you saw were available tickets, you'd have no way of knowing whether they were being priced above market or not. By showing you two sales, provided they're actually real sales and picked arbitrarily (i.e. not picking the most expensive sales), they're giving you information about what other buyers are willing to pay for tickets. It's like seeing real estate comps...sure the houses have already been sold, but it helps you get a feel for whether the one you're looking at is being sold for a fair price.

[mikeash]

If they only showed the sold tickets that would be OK. But they first show these tickets as available, them change them to sold in front of the user, as if they had just been purchased. This is outright lying.

[alexasmyths]

"there's definite consumer value to seeing tickets that sold. It helps correct an information imbalance between sellers and buyers."

I don't think you're playing the devil's advocate.

By all means - they and and as you indicate - maybe should show recent tickets sold. That's valuable information.

But what they are showing is made up data. Not good. And definitely 'anti valuable'.

[jordancolburn]

They are showing tickets that recently sold. Just regardless of whether or not they fit in your searches and whether or not they knew they were already sold at the time you loaded the page.

They are going out of their way to insert previously sold tickets at the top of searches to make things look busy. I never timed how long it could be from sale to "simulated sale" but there were a few that stuck around for probably 10 min (guesstimate, but it was long enough to grab my coworkers and discuss and look at the code and refresh a number of times).

[bluetwo]

This might be illegal according to FTC regulations. CFR 16 section 232.2 says:

"Another commonly used form of bargain advertising is to offer goods at prices lower than those being charged by others for the same merchandise in the advertiser's trade area (the area in which he does business). This may be done either on a temporary or a permanent basis, but in either case the advertised higher price must be based upon fact, and not be fictitious or misleading."

[c3534l]

Creating a false sense of urgency is different from creating a sense of urgency through falsehood.

[Roshie5u]

> sometimes will just say "few available" without specifying a number

I don't think it is a good example. It is often a real technical limitation - they aren't able to keep consistent inventory count between branches, warehouses and internet sites. Other reason for "few available" is some form of dropshipping - they don't really have any items.

[polemic]

> This is just like when you go to an electronics store and they put the super expensive tv (almost) nobody buys right next to the still very expensive but comparably more modest model. You are more likely to buy that second tv even if costs more than you initially budgeted because your brain tells you that this is the cheaper model with _almost_ the same features as the flagship tv.

I disagree that these are equivalent.

Product differentiation exists in part to ensure you leave no money on the table -- if someone is cashed up and wants to pay 50% more for an extra 2 inches on the screen size, then you let them. Conversely, for the people who are super price conscious you have the very low margin end of line product hidden at the back. You alway maximise price by ensuring you have what they want at a price they're willing to pay. Generally this is fair and works well for consumers.

But here we have prices that you _cannot_ pay. It's a dark pattern akin to bait and switch techniques that should (and might) be illegal.

[mandeepj]

This is analogous to when an unknown Joe creates a new course he specify in italics that only few seats left even though nobody have signed up yet. It is all to just create a rush.

[gertef]

Nothing modern about it, it's one of the classic old selling techniques.

[smt88]

What historical examples can you give where a seller made products look popular using fake customers purchasing unavailable products?

It'd be like seeing a line for a new video game system, and everyone in the line was paid to be there and won't be buying it.

[jpeterman]

"Act now while supplies last"