Those of us with children know an interesting pattern in consumer (child) behavior. People want to have what is hard or impossible to get. It must be this insight that explains why French telecom giant Orange has hired actors to line up in front of their stores during the Poland launch of the IPhone.
Usually, firms try to REDUCE the length of waiting lines – very much in the spirit of “Matching supply with demand”. But – even we admit – there is more to business than operations alone. Creating a perception of scarcity and increasing the difficulty for a consumer to obtain a product can actually INCREASE demand. Consumers view long lines as indicators of good quality. In fact, recent research combining models of Operations Management and Marketing show what our children have long figured out: “If you can’t get it, it probably is really good”…
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN215519020080821
Also see the research by Professors Debo and Veeraraghavan(http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~senthilv/)
