Peter Broeder

Who they are

The 2022 paper lists Broeder, with co-author Eileen Wentink, at the Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg University, in the Netherlands. This page records nothing about him beyond the cited work.

The study was an experimental survey. Participants saw a product offer in a web store with either a limited-time availability notice or a non-limited, in-stock notice. In total 208 Europeans took part, drawn from Italy, which the authors describe as an individualistic-masculine society, and the Netherlands, described as individualistic-feminine.

The limited-time notice did not directly generate higher purchase intention than the in-stock notice. It did have an indirect effect. The notice created higher perceived scarcity, which activated higher perceived competition, which in turn raised purchase intention. That indirect effect appeared only among the Italian participants and not among the Dutch.

The path from a notice to an intention

The finding is a chain. A limited-time notice, set against an in-stock notice for the same web-shop offer, did not on its own raise the intention to buy. It raised perceived scarcity. Perceived scarcity raised a sense of competing with other buyers, which the authors call competitive arousal. That sense raised purchase intention. Where the chain held, it was through the middle links. Where it did not, the notice left intention where it was.

The chain held for the Italian participants and not for the Dutch. The authors place Italy as an individualistic-masculine society and the Netherlands as individualistic-feminine, and they use the contrast to account for the difference. Two countries is a narrow base for a claim about culture, and the page repeats the authors' reading and does not extend it.

What kind of evidence it is

The study is an experimental survey, 208 Europeans reading an offer and answering questions. It measures stated intention, not purchases. The outcome is stated intention after reading a notice, which is a weaker thing than a sale. This page and the Countdown Timer article could reach only the abstract and the author affiliation, so the details of the measures, the product and the exact sample split by country are not reported here.

For a seller, the useful reading is cautious. A deadline notice may not move intention directly, and where it does move it, the route may depend on whether the shopper feels other buyers are in the picture. A 2022 meta-analysis of 131 studies found cues of limited supply, limited time and demand all raised stated intention by a modest amount, none reliably ahead of the others, and again the outcome was intention in a scenario.

Key papers

Broeder, P., & Wentink, E. (2022). "Limited-time scarcity and competitive arousal in E-commerce." The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 32(5), 549-567. doi:10.1080/09593969.2022.2098360.

Key ideas

In this study a deadline notice was not a direct lever on intention. Its effect, where it appears, runs through how scarce the offer feels and how much it feels contested, and it may depend on culture. The outcome is stated intention in a survey, not a purchase. See Scarcity Effect.

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