When it comes to persuasion, human nature is very predictable. There are certain conditions we all react to similarly. When the right conditions are presented to us and the right persuasive buttons are pushed they act as automatic compliance mechanisms that, once set in motion are very difficult to resist, this is just the way our brains are wired.
In the classic book on persuasion, Influence: The Physiology of Persuasion, Dr. Cialdini, who is regarded as the worlds highest authority on persuasion and influence, masterfully examines six principles of persuasion that are universal across all cultures and circumstances. Among the six principals are the principle of scarcity and the principle of commitment.
Both of these persuasion principles as well as others can translate online in the form of persuasive design and conversion rate optimization. Let’s examine how Totsy.com expertly applies the principal of scarcity and at the same time solves the problem of choice as discussed in a previous post.
Totsy is an eCommerce website that adds a level of exclusivity through private selling and requires you to create an account before you ever see a single product for sale, creating a form of exclusive access for savvy moms.
Exclusive access alone is in itself a form of persuasion, by wrapping membership around the language of exclusivity on the home page. The button copy used to become a member fully supports the exclusivity of the site. Rather than simply saying, Join the button, says Request Membership which is congruent with the private access they promise for brand specific sales of up to 70 percent off.
Once a Totsy member the principle of scarcity is in full effect. Totsy features products on it’s site for a limited time, up to three days and typically at 40 – 70 percent off.
You can only buy 3 items and preview upcoming items for the next 9 days. The limited choice of only 3 items is actually a good thing and encourages members to become repeat visitors, creating a behavior pattern in their customers to remain in a constant bargain buying mode.
The perceived scarcity that is created by limiting sales to a specific time with a countdown clock generates more demand and taps into the limiting factor of scarcity for every item.
The time for the sale is very prominent on the detail page and throughout the browsing visit. What is more interesting is the use of the principal of consistency. The persuasion principal of consistency states that if people publicly take even a small stand towards something, they are more likely to honor that commitment. 
Totsy capitalizes on this principal masterfully by adding a timer to the shopping cart. After you have added a product to your cart an Attention message warns you that your cart will be emptied in 9 minutes if you don’t check out or resume activity on the site. This creates a form of persuasive pressure for the buyer. They have committed to adding an item to their cart and now the pressure to remain consistent with their action of adding an item to the cart begins to build over the next nine minutes.
