Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) – Helping user decision making since… forever

One fine Monday morning, I got a WhatsApp message from a firm. Yes, I still use WhatsApp messenger. And I have no intent of leaving it anytime soon if you must know that. But this writeup is not about it. I was being offered an early access to a product which was going live on their platform later that night (or day after maybe). This was sometime in late February. I had registered with them in February month only. I had no idea what their typical communication model was, how I was selected for early access, how often they did such a thing etc. I did what I could do best in such a situation. Sent a screenshot to a friend joking that they must have sent the “early access" message to everyone and that any subscriptions before listing would simply add weight behind the product. And then I did what I needed to do. Opened offer document, read it end to end, did a bit online study, evaluated the product, and finally decided that it was not my cup of tea.

Two days later, I got an update WhatsApp message on the offering. The deal was finally live on platform. And that it was already subscribed 35% ??. I did what I could do best in such a situation. Sent an update message to my friend joking how correct I was! The subscription percentage looks so good at the time of listing. And that it was such a nice FOMO generation trick. He did what he could do best in such a situation - sent back a quip asking me to write about it on LinkedIn.

I did not do that. Not till now, I mean. But I did do something which I have not told him about. I looked at 35% number. And then I did what I needed to do. Opened offer document, read it end to end, did a bit online study, evaluated the product, and finally decided that it was not my cup of tea.

I had already looked at the offering from a rational mind using whatever information and evaluation capability I had in the first pass. I had not become any wiser in 2 days. I did not have any new information to process in 2 days. But when I saw the number in front of my eyes, I had self – doubt. Or maybe I had more faith on strength of numbers than my own judgement. I did not want to miss out. I had a fear that I would miss out on a product which was being valued by others. 

I stuck to my original decision on this one. I would be lying if I tell you that is always the case. And you would be lying if you tell me that you never get biased into making decisions against your better judgement. As if, you have never watched a movie based on strong recommendation, against your better judgement… and later requested those 90 minutes be returned to you. Or purchased a stock based on social group recommendation and then regretted it few months later realizing Red is beautiful color, but not on your stock returns.

Typical product browsing comes with different type of attributes. As a potential customer, you see the attributes as part of product discovery / evaluation. These attributes are meant to help you with your decision making. I see 3 type of attributes decorating a product sale pitch:

1. Actual product attributes – Dimensions, color, design, price, USP, warranty promise, guarantee promise etc. These would be the things you get when you buy a product.
2. Urgency attributes – There attribute inform / introduce some urgency towards decision making process. First stage of FOMO ??. But not all urgency indicators are pure FOMO. For e.g., an indicator showing current availability on a train is truly relevant to a customer. Similarly, insights into product inventory count if it runs risk of being out of stock are extremely helpful. There are some great workflows where urgency is transparently baked into purchase journey. For e.g., when you book a movie ticket in India (referring to pre-Covid era), you get to see actual seat availability on screen. Not just that you select you seat as part of purchase workflow. Unless someone is fiddling with availability in background, the urgency (seat scarcity) is very real if it is a busy show. Similar workflows also exist for bus booking. Time based urgency indicators can also be very legit. For e.g., buying opportunity of a season fruit. Or buying opportunity before a tax revision cause price hike. Or start of new financial year closes your opportunity to save some money in last financial year, for a purchase you were going to do anyways. But then again, this is where things move from “making an informed purchase” to “forcing a fast purchase”. E.g., a limited time deal carved out of a discount, which could have been offered anyways.
3. FOMO attributes – Attributes whose sole purpose is to introduce fear/guilt of missing out. Plenty of examples. It can be your favorite streaming portal reminding you that you are yet to watch any of top 10 titles that whole nation is watching. Or it could be your favorite ecommerce portal / app reminding you that you have only 10 minutes left to make best purchase of your lifetime. Or it can be your favorite travel website telling you that 1million people are looking at exact same hotel at that very instance (developer used wrong magnitude amplifier if you must know). 

I have personally observed (and experienced) following behavior at the end of a limited time deal:

• New price was higher than old price. The good scenario if I may say.
• New price was same as old price.
• New price was lower than old price! I lost ~10% on one such deal this one time.

Similarly last minute financial planning is excellent place for bad purchases because decision-making gets polluted by urgency to save on tax / invest more money.

I wish I could say that I have found a solution to FOMO. In reality, social integration in commerce (or is it the other way round these days) is bringing in increased FOMO drivers everywhere. Ease of commerce (even in stock purchases!) combined with FOMO factor can my mind become confident about a purchase even against my better judgement. Its only I who has to hold my resolve high, be OK with missing out without being guilty about it and also go with the flow every once in a while.

Have you made a FOMO decision which you regretted later? Care to share?

P.S. Is it just me or the formatting options for LinkedIn articles are actually very limited? Lets just say, this is not how I wanted this piece to look like.