This post is part of a series focused on psychology principles, specifically applied to software.

这篇文章是专门针对软件的心理学原理系列文章的一部分。

When was the last time you looked up something online and that particular item you were looking for was sold out? Did that increase your desire for that item? Did you check back 2 days, one week later? Did you subscribe to the “back in stock” email notification?

您上次在网上查询商品的时间是什么时候？ 那增加了您对该物品的渴望吗？ 一星期后，您有两天回来吗？ 您是否订阅了“库存返还”电子邮件通知？

I certainly did, and many times.

我确实做了很多次。

You know that feeling when there is a shortage of tickets for a particular event, and you buy them thinking that since it’s about to sell out, it must be a good one?

您知道当特定活动的门票短缺时的感觉，而您购买它们时却以为既然门票即将售罄，那一定是一种好感觉吗？

If the item was in stock, I’d not bother and think “I’ll buy it next week”. If the event had many unsold tickets, I’d wait until the same day and buy them at the entrance.

如果该物品有库存，我不会打扰，认为“我下周会买”。 如果活动有很多未售出的门票，我要等到当天才能在入口购买。

There’s a feeling of rush and urgency that is derived from what we call scarcity.

我们称之为稀缺性，因此有一种仓促和紧迫感。

Companies use scarcity to take advantage of this feeling, which is mechanical, it works all the time - but you can control it when you recognize it.

公司利用稀缺性来利用这种感觉，这种感觉是机械的，它一直有效，但是当您意识到它时就可以控制它。

Booking.com adds little popups to a room that’s the last in the hotel, to show you that 2 other people are looking at this same room right now - better hurry up!

Booking.com增加了小的弹出窗口一个房间，是最后的酒店，向您展示其他2人都在，现在看着这同一个房间-快点好起来！

Amazon shows “want you get it tomorrow? Order it within 12 minutes”. Also Amazon has daily deals that end at midnight. Every day different deals, but every day they end at midnight. Nearly all e-commerce sites get mad with scarcity on all levels, up to clothes sizes.

亚马逊显示“明天你想买吗？ 在12分钟内订购”。 亚马逊每天的交易都在午夜结束。 每天都有不同的交易，但每天都在午夜结束。 几乎所有电子商务网站都在各个层面上都感到疯狂，包括衣服大小。

Auctions (think eBay) are designed around scarcity. One product, many people want it, time is running out, bid higher!

拍卖(认为eBay)是围绕稀缺性设计的。 一种产品，很多人想要它，时间不多了，出价更高！

Udemy always has those courses at 95% off, $9.99 instead of $189.99, only for 1 day, except they repeat this promotion every week or so (which is great for us consumers, maybe not for authors that might never sell at full price once the consumer knows this “trick”).

Udemy始终将这些课程以1天的价格提供95％的折扣，9.99美元而不是189.99美元的优惠，只不过他们每周大约重复一次此促销活动(这对我们的消费者来说非常好，也许不适合那些可能永远不会以全价出售的作者。消费者知道这个“窍门”)。

How do I know? I’ve published a course on Udemy and from this experience - also by talking to other authors - I realized people very rarely buy at full price on that site.

我怎么知道？ 我已经发布了有关Udemy的课程，并根据这种经验-还通过与其他作者交谈-意识到人们很少会在该网站上全价购买。

You can also take advantage of this principle yourself.

您也可以自己利用此原理。

Think about time.

想想时间 。

Parkinson’s law tells us that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

帕金森定律告诉我们， 工作正在扩展，以填补完成工作所需的时间 。

Wikipedia lists a few corollaries to this law:

维基百科列出了该法的一些推论：

• If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do如果您等到最后一分钟，只需一分钟即可完成
• Work contracts to fit in the time we give it工作合同以适应我们提供的时间
• In ten hours a day you have time to fall twice as far behind your commitments as in five hours a day每天十个小时，您有时间落后于您的承诺，是每天五个小时的两倍
• The amount of time that one has to perform a task is the amount of time it will take to complete the task.一个人必须执行的时间是完成任务所需要的时间。

This is why hackathons are so effective. You have a fixed amount of time, and so you make all your project fit into that time. The 24 Hour Startup Challenge is a great example. You have 24 hours to complete your goal.

这就是黑客马拉松如此有效的原因。 您有固定的时间，因此您可以使所有项目适应该时间。 24小时启动挑战赛就是一个很好的例子。 您有24小时来完成目标。

Time is limited and as the clock ticks, you feel more pressure to deliver and you work even harder (and smarter), eliminating distractions, procrastination and you just do the work.

时间是有限的，随着时间的流逝，您交付时会感到更大的压力，并且您会更加努力(并且更加聪明)，从而消除了干扰，拖延的烦恼， 您就可以完成工作 。

Scarcity is such a powerful force. How can you apply it to your business?

稀缺是一种强大的力量。 您如何将其应用于您的业务？

The most common case is launches. You drum up a launch that lasts a week, or a few days. You inform your users (hopefully you have an email list of prospects or existing customers) and when you launch, you have a discount that lasts all the launch phase. Once the launch phase is over, the price goes up to normal.

最常见的情况是发射 。 您可以启动持续一周或几天的发射。 您会通知您的用户(希望您有潜在客户或现有客户的电子邮件列表)，并且在启动时，您可以享受到整个启动阶段的折扣 。 发射阶段结束后，价格将恢复正常。

This gives a sense of urgency to get the discounted price which will last only a few days (hence scarcity).

这给获得紧缩价格的紧迫感，折扣价格将只持续几天(因此稀缺)。

It’s common practice to repeat this discount for a limited time practice from time to time (e.g. for Black Friday, product anniversaries or for Christmas). The key thing is to not do it too often to avoid people always waiting for a discount and never purchasing at the full price.

通常的做法是不时地在有限的时间内重复这种折扣(例如，黑色星期五，产品周年纪念日或圣诞节)。 关键是不要经常这样做，以免人们总是在等待打折，而不是全价购买。

Another option is to have a closing date for the launch. I plan this for my upcoming Node.js course - instead of having a discount, I launch at full price and the sales are only open for four days, after that you can’t buy the course any more. In this case the discount is not applicable, as it would always be the full price (you can’t say 50% OFF and sales close, as it makes no sense).

另一个选择是为发布确定截止日期 。 我为即将到来的Node.js课程计划这件事-我没有折扣，而是以全价推出，并且销售只开放了四天，在那之后您将无法再购买该课程。 在这种情况下，折扣是不适用的，因为它将始终是全价(您不能说有50％的折扣并关闭销售，因为这没有任何意义)。

In both cases, in all the case studies I read, the first day and the last day are the ones where you make most sales. The first day is typically when people that are eager to buy from you make the purchase. The last day is when the scarcity principle really comes into play.

在这两种情况下，在我阅读的所有案例研究中， 第一天和 最后一天都是您销量最高的。 通常，第一天是渴望向您购买商品的人购买的商品。 最后一天是稀缺性原则真正发挥作用的时候。

“Tomorrow I will lose the launch discount” “This is the last day I can buy this, then they will take it away form me!”.

“明天我将失去发射折扣”“这是我可以购买的最后一天，然后他们将从我手中夺走它！”。

This is something I discovered in the last few years: you can’t just put a product out there and wait for sales to happen. The launch is the moment when most of your sales will happen. The important thing is to try to repeat the launch periodically, and how do you do so? Big releases for example. Offer discounts every time you do a big release. If you have an app, your 1.0 is the best day for sales. 1.1 is the next big day. 2.0 can be your best day ever.

这是我在最近几年发现的东西： 您不能只是将产品放在那里等待销售发生 。 发布会是您大部分销售都会发生的时刻。 重要的是尝试定期重复启动 ，您该如何做？ 例如，大发行。 每次发布时均提供折扣。 如果您有应用程式，则1.0是最佳的销售日。 下一个重要的日子是1.1。 2.0可能是您有史以来最好的一天。

Before the launch, scarcity can be present the form of private betas: enter your email and I’ll add you to the next batch of enrollment. We have a high number of applicants and a limited capacity. Scarcity (+ social proof).

在发布之前，稀缺性可以以私人Beta版的形式出现：输入您的电子邮件，我会将您添加到下一批注册中。 我们的申请者人数众多，而且能力有限。 稀缺性 (+社会证明)。

I currently launch my courses with an open and a closing date. 4 days of launch. You can’t purchase a course outside of this 4-days launch period. Scarcity. Why I do so? Because when I launch the course I need to be 100% present and make sure all works great for the next few months where people get in the course, consume the content and ask me for help and mentoring.

我目前在开课和闭课的日期开设课程。 发布4天。 您不能在这4天的发布期之外购买课程。 稀缺 。 我为什么要这么做？ 因为当我启动课程时，我需要100％出席并且确保在接下来的几个月内所有的工作都能顺利进行，让人们参加课程，使用内容并向我寻求帮助和指导。

Launches repeat over time. I launched a Vue.js course during the summer, I plan to update it, add more content and relaunch it during the summer of next year. This will give me time to grow my email list, build anticipation for the launch, and do a big splash.

随着时间的推移重复发射。 我在暑假期间启动了Vue.js课程，我计划在明年夏天对其进行更新，添加更多内容并重新启动。 这将使我有时间来扩展我的电子邮件列表，为发布建立预期，并大放异彩。

A couple ideas in addition to launches?

除了发布之外，还有其他一些想法吗？

• have a product that once sells out, you won’t make it any more. Think about The Boring Company (not a) Flamethrower. Numbers were limited to 20.000 and sold out in a very small amount of time. You are not Elon Musk though, so do things at your scale. For example I have an optional mentoring package for my online courses, where I review projects and exercises I assign to people. Since this is a time consuming activity, and I have no other people working with me, I have a fixed amount of those packages for sale, for example 100. Once they sell out, you can’t buy it any more, and I make sure this number is shown in the landing page and automatically updates as the sales happen.拥有一种一旦售罄的产品，就不会再销售了。 想想无聊的公司(不是)喷火器。 数量限制为20.000，并在极短的时间内售罄。 但是您不是Elon Musk，因此请按您的规模做。 例如，对于在线课程，我有一个可选的指导包，在这里我可以查看分配给他人的项目和练习。 由于这是一项耗时的活动，而且我没有其他人在与我一起工作，所以我有固定数量的待售包装，例如100个。一旦售罄，您就不能再购买了，我赚了确保此编号显示在着陆页上，并在销售发生时自动更新。
• an invite-only beta, although it might only work on products that get lucky and go “viral”, think about the Mailbox app.仅邀请版本的beta，尽管它可能仅适用于幸运且变得“病毒式”的产品，但请考虑邮箱应用程序。
• have a closed signup process. People can’t just pay and join. They need to sign up to a waiting list, which increases the perceived value. I’ve seen several of these examples. You need to fill a form, tell why you absolutely need to join, and wait a couple weeks.有一个封闭的注册过程。 人们不能只是付费和加入。 他们需要注册一个等待名单，这会增加感知价值。 我已经看过其中几个例子。 您需要填写一张表格，说出您为什么绝对需要加入，然后等待几周。

Whatever your business model is, try to think of ways to bake in scarcity in a natural way.

无论您的商业模式是什么， 都应尝试自然地想办法解决短缺问题 。

翻译自: https://flaviocopes.com/scarcity-principle/