Anticipated regret
People choose in ways that avoid regret they expect to feel later.
Four of the eight page areas.
Three ways to use it, and one to avoid.
- Offer free, low-effort returns and price-match promises, which remove the regret of buying.
- Send genuine “last chance” and back-in-stock alerts, which raise the regret of missing out.
- Show well-known brands and guarantees for cautious shoppers.
- Avoid: presenting the 14-day legal right to cancel as a special feature of your offer, a banned practice under the DMCC Act 2024.
Imagining regret made people likelier to buy now. Lenient returns raise purchases more than returns.
Lenient return policies raise purchases more than they raise returns.
Simonson found that asking people to imagine regretting a wrong choice made them more likely to buy a sale item now and to pick the well-known brand. In real coupon data, Inman and McAlister found redemptions peaked again just before expiry, as regret theory predicts. A health meta-analysis linked anticipated regret to behaviour (r = .29), and a retail meta-analysis found lenient returns raised purchases more than returns.
Five sources, each checked.
Last reviewed
'Last chance' and low-stock prompts must be true. Online buyers have a 14-day right to cancel under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 whatever your returns policy says, and presenting a legal right as a special feature of your offer is a banned practice under the DMCC Act 2024.
This is simply a pointer to check, not legal advice. Seek legal advice before you put this principle into action.