Cooking & EatingThe scarcity of vegetable oil due to the war in Ukraine has caused us to stock up on sunflower oil en masse. Now it turns out that we don’t just stock them up to put in the pantry. The liquid gold is now also offered on Marktplaats.
,,As a mirror of society, you can see on Marktplaats like no other what is going on with trends and current events, but also with developments in the (consumer) market,’ says Maaike Veeling on behalf of Marktplaats. “So also now. From March 17 to 23, when there was a lot of media attention for the run on sunflower oil in supermarkets for the first time, we see an increase in interest in sunflower oil on Marktplaats. At the beginning of March, there were still about 160 searches a day for this oil, on March 20 we see an outlier to just under 29,000 searches.”
On Google is the biggest peak over† That was between 13 and 19 March, but the interest is still much higher than usual.
Bids are running high: up to a million euros are being offered on some bottles. But if it’s up to consumer psychologist Patrick Wessels, we don’t have to take this too seriously. “It kind of falls into the category of storm in a teacup or a fun April Fool’s Day joke. It’s more of a gimmick to see what happens. I don’t expect that we will suddenly pay very large amounts for this, especially because we don’t need it so badly and there is also an alternative.”
Scarcity plays a role
“We cannot ignore the sunflower oil craze”, says Nicole van Roekel, online marketer and founder of money blog The Budget Life. “After it was announced in various media around March 15 that the stock of sunflower oil would be exhausted in four to six weeks, Google saw a bizarre increase in search behavior for sunflower oil. I also thought about getting a bottle after all, just to be sure. And that while I have had a bottle of sunflower oil in the cupboard for years that has not been touched.”
“Scarcity is one of the six principles of persuasion within marketing,” explains Van Roekel. ,,Is a product scarce? Then suddenly the feeling arises that you have to buy something because otherwise you will be too late. This makes certain products more valuable.” So people are now spotting an opportunity to make money with this. ,,I think it’s also typical for the average Dutchman who tries to make a profit here. Earlier we saw it happen with the extremely affordable wedding dress from Zeeman in 2016. The dress was only available to a limited extent, sold out in no time and appeared almost immediately on Marktplaats for much higher asking prices.”
If the stock is really gone in a few weeks, it may just happen that this will happen
But according to Wessels, people will not just pay a large amount for something on Marktplaats. ,,First of all, it must be very necessary and much more scarce than it is now. And we must have the idea that we are all bidding together and that we have to bid against each other. That is far from the case. It is possible, for example, with tickets for concerts. They are very scarce and people would like to have them by a certain date.”
Van Roekel also does not expect people to pay bizarre amounts for a bottle of sunflower oil. ,,But if the stock really runs out in a few weeks, it may just happen that this will happen. Then it becomes a matter of ‘what the madman will give’. On the other hand, I wonder whether people with sky-high prices still feel that they really need that bottle of sunflower oil. Personally, I would look for affordable alternatives such as olive oil or coconut oil.”
I put it on Marktplaats to see how far people would go
“I put it on Marktplaats to see how far people would go to get sunflower oil,” says a seller of the sunflower oil in a short response. But so far I haven’t sold any. I will remove people who bid extremely high without any consultation. In short, I still have them and I don’t plan to really sell them.”
However, Wessels thinks differently about this. ,,Most people will say it’s a joke, but there are indeed types among them who want to earn money from this. Research shows that everyone always commits some kind of fraud. If I put such a bottle on Marktplaats ‘just for fun’ for five bucks and someone takes this seriously and transfers the money in advance, count on me to sell it, because I’m just fraudulent enough to do that. to deserve. People all cheat a bit in that area, but that does not mean that they are immediately the wrong people.”
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and never miss a thing from the stars.
#High #prices #sunflower #oil #Typical #Dutch #profit