Products ‘made by mistake’ sell more

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📝 Context

Topic: Product | Messaging & Copy
For: B2C
Research date: August 2017
Universities: New York University, Boston University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

You’re an ecommerce manager selling modern travel accessories, and you’ve noticed your latest batch of luggage tags has the wrong color mix (pink and blue instead of your signature orange and blue).

That was an expensive order and people will realize the products are not in your signature colors.

Science says you should own your mistake, and even lean into it.

P.S.: This works with offers too. People are more likely to take offers that seem like they weren’t meant for them (e.g. a coupon intended for business travelers, claimed by a tourist)

📈 Recommendation

If you make mistakes in your product production (e.g. a misprint), don’t hide them. Highlight them and clearly communicate what the mistake was. Avoid this if you're new on the market or if your product is bought for its functionality (e.g. a deodorant).

People will see your product as more unique and be more likely to buy and willing to pay more for it.

🎓 Findings

• People prefer, want and pay more for products with mistakes.

• Across 7 experiments and an analysis of 3,114 eBay auction sales, scientists found that people: 

  • Paid more for artistic photos from the same seller on eBay when they had mistakes (e.g. fingers in the frame)

  • Wanted a chocolate bar with an accidentally (vs intentionally) enriched flavor 26% more often 

  • Were 27.3% more likely to buy and willing to pay 71.8% more for an artist’s painting with an accidental mark (e.g. with a fingerprint)

  • Were 18.8% more likely to buy, and 18.7% more interested in listening to a song with an unplanned sound addition (e.g. singer’s breathing)

  • Were 10.3% more likely to say they would order a lasagna dish with an ingredient mistakenly added to the sauce (e.g. accidentally using nutmeg instead of pepper)

• The effect:

  • Works even if the mistake makes the product worse (e.g a mark on a drawing)

  • Works regardless of scarcity (e.g. whether 100 or 10,000 are produced)

  • Disappears if the product is bought for its functionality (e.g. a supplement) instead of pleasure (e.g. a cookie)

  • Disappears if the manufacturer is new in business

🧠 Why it works

• We see a product made by mistake as out of the ordinary and unusual, regardless of whether it’s for the worse or better.

• This makes us see them as unique, making us more attracted to them.

• However, we think beginners are more likely to make mistakes, which makes us see their mistaken product as less unique and interesting.

• Similarly, uniqueness becomes less relevant when we are buying for a product’s functionality.

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✋ Limitations

• The study didn’t look at what happens when the consequences of the mistakes are unpleasant (e.g. make the product unusable, bad smell), and where the boundary is.

• The effect might not apply to expensive luxury items (e.g. watch, perfume, whiskey) with a mistake as it might make people concerned about the quality. However, this wasn’t tested.

• It’s likely that overusing this tactic will backfire and reflect negatively on the brand’s image.

👀 Real-life example

Artist Colette is a brand selling work-themed hair accessories (e.g. a calendar hairclip). They announced a misprint on their calculator claw clips on social media.

❌ Issue: They posted a viral video on TikTok addressing the misprint and offering refunds or replacements to all their customers.

✅ Solution: The mistake could have been a great opportunity to increase sales of that product stock if handled differently:

• They could have clearly communicated the mistake but framed it as a fun, unique product instead.

• They could have also run a limited-time offer, stopping it when the remaining stock sold out. This limited, but justified timeframe could have made it more effective.

• Since it’s a small business and the founder is the face of the brand, she could have taken the chance to thank people for their understanding by including a handwritten thank you note in the order, boosting future sales.

🔍 Study type

Lab and online experiments, field experiment (144 train station passersbys evaluating a recently formulated chocolate) and market observation (3,114 photos sold in eBay auction sales from the same seller over 3 months in 2016)

📖 Research

Made by Mistake: When Mistakes Increase Product Preference. Journal of Consumer Research (August 2017). 

🏫 Researchers

• Taly Reich. New York University

• Daniella M Kupor. Boston University

• Rosanna K Smith. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Remember: This is a scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

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