Losing something sucks ass.
In fact it sucks more than if you never had it to begin with. It’s the concept of loss aversion. Studies show you feel twice as much pain from loss than you do pleasure from a gain.
Well that’s no fun. How can you make the best of it?
For starters, you could design products with this consumer behaviour in mind. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Some example applications:
- Airlines, shopping sites like Gilt do this amazingly well. Want a ticket? You better buy it quick because even if it’s in your cart it could disappear if you don’t complete your transaction within minutes. That countdown timer is pure evil.
- When asking for charitable donations, instead of telling people how many goats you can buy with the donation, how about the # of people who won’t die because they’ve been fed? The number of shelter animals that don’t get put down because you made a donation. Hear that? Make a donation. 😉
- Networking or dating sites, where your messages and stats might get deleted after 30 days or x period of inactivity unless you pay to upgrade
- Farmville (and all its permutations) where your crops die from neglect unless you check in on the crops.
Also, knowing this instinct:
In making decisions, consider whether you’re being caught up with sunk costs. What you’ve invested in something so far should not influence whether you continue to do it.
