Boost Your Sales: The Power of Short-Asking with Long-Encouraging (SALE)
Marketers—and even public agencies—often use messages like “Stock up and save” or “Store at least a two-week supply of water and food” to encourage people to buy more. But new research suggests these traditional approaches might not be as effective as hoped. Enter SALE, or Short-Asking with Long-Encouraging, a simple yet powerful method shown to significantly increase how much consumers buy.
What is SALE?
SALE is an innovative messaging strategy that combines two key elements in advertising or promotional copy:
A long-encouraging statement that sets a clear, longer-term goal. For example: “Stock up for two weeks.”
A short-asking prompt that gets customers to think about their consumption in a much shorter, more tangible time frame, like: “Think about how many you’ll use in a day.
An ad might put it together simply:
“Stock up for two weeks! Think about how many you’ll use in a day.”
This pairing does more than just sound helpful. It works because it subtly guides how people estimate what they need.
About the Research
Short-Asking with Long-Encouraging (SALE): A simple method to increase purchase quantity
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS), 2023; Volume 53
Authors:
Zoe Y. Lu
Christopher K. Hsee
Kaiyang Wu
Full Citation:
Lu, Z.Y., Hsee, C.K. & Wu, K. Short-Asking with Long-Encouraging (SALE): A simple method to increase purchase quantity. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 52, 1152–1170 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-023-00975-x
Why Does SALE Work?
The effectiveness of SALE is rooted in two well-known psychological effects: anchoring-and-adjustment and contrast effects.
Typically, people start with an anchor—some known piece of information—and adjust from there when deciding how much to buy. But traditional marketing messages that give a single anchor (like “Buy a two-week supply”) can fall short if that anchor feels abstract or too high. Consumers might not adjust up much at all—or may even ignore it.
SALE changes this dynamic by combining a short-asking prompt with a long-encouraging statement, creating a contrast that pushes customers to adjust higher. Here’s how it plays out:
The short-asking prompt (like “How many do you use in a day?”) gives customers a concrete, easily estimated starting point.
This short-term quantity is obviously much smaller than the long-term goal (like a two-week supply), creating a sharp contrast.
That contrast nudges people to make a bigger upward adjustment, leading them to buy more than they would have with a vague or single-frame message.
In fact, the studies show that this increased quantity is directly tied to how much consumers adjust their estimates upward—confirming that the mechanism works through their own mental calculation process.
Evidence from the Field and the Lab
The researchers behind SALE didn’t just theorize about it. They rigorously tested the approach through multiple studies:
Field Studies: In one experiment at fruit stores, customers exposed to SALE messaging bought more mandarin oranges than those who saw typical “equal-asking” messages. Similarly, a study on a mobile app selling virtual game tokens found that users in the SALE condition purchased significantly more virtual diamonds than those shown equal-asking or no-asking messages. Notably, SALE increased the quantity purchased, not the likelihood of making a purchase—so it’s especially effective at increasing cart size.
Lab Experiments: Four additional lab studies reinforced these findings, ruling out other explanations like simply being asked about the product or having an easier time making the estimate.
Salespeople Survey: A survey with experienced salespeople revealed that SALE was novel to them—and most didn’t predict its strong positive effect, highlighting how intuitive assumptions can miss powerful psychological nudges.
Key Factors That Shape SALE’s Effectiveness
The researchers also uncovered some important nuances:
The shorter the “short-asking” timeframe, the better. Asking about daily use is more effective than asking about weekly use when promoting a one-month supply, because the contrast is sharper and drives a larger upward adjustment.
Keep it easy to estimate. If it’s hard for customers to figure out how much they use in the short term—like cereal from a large box instead of single-serve cups—the effect shrinks. It’s crucial to pick timeframes and products that align with typical consumption patterns.
Always specify the long timeframe. SALE doesn’t work if the long-encouraging statement is vague. For example, saying “Stock up today!” paired with a short-asking prompt won’t boost purchase quantity, because there’s no clear contrast. A message like “Stock up for two weeks!” is essential.
Practical Takeaways
For marketers and retailers, SALE offers a straightforward, research-backed way to increase how much customers buy—without relying on price promotions. Simply pairing a specific long-term encouragement with a prompt that gets customers thinking about their short-term needs can unlock a surprisingly powerful psychological effect.
It’s a small change, but one that guides customers to do their own math—and often decide to buy more. In the end, SALE doesn’t just encourage higher purchase quantities; it helps consumers make clearer decisions about what they need, making it a win for both sides.
From the Authors
What companies/organizations/industries will benefit from your findings?
Retailers, including national brands such as Amazon, Home Depot, Walgreens, or smaller brands such as local food markets, will benefit from our findings as their customers would purchase more units of a product when they apply Short-Asking and Long-Encouraging in their advertising message for the product;
Emergency management agencies (e.g., FEMA of the U.S.) will also benefit from our findings as citizens would have a clearer idea of how many units of an emergency supply they should stock up for an emergency.
How may these organizations benefit?
Suppose a local food market was running a 20% price discount for their mandarin oranges. We found in a field experiment that, an average consumer purchased 2.51 kg of the mandarin oranges if the food market did not apply the SALE (short-asking with long-encouraging) message we recommend in this article, but purchased 2.93 kg of the mandarin oranges if the food market applied the SALE message. From 2.51 kg per customer to 2.93 kg per customer, applying the SALE message increased the sales volume of the promoted product by 17%.
What competitive, cooperative, customer, employee, or market conditions may success of the recommendations depend?
The success of the recommendation (short-asking with long-encouraging) depends on two main factors:
(1) The match between the product's life span and the time span consumers are encouraged to stock the product for (e.g., if the promoted product can last for a month, it's better to encourage consumers to stock up on the product for a month than for a week or for a year).
(2) The match between consumers' regular consumption speed of the product and the consumption speed they are asked to think about (e.g., if an average consumer consumes 3 mandarin oranges in one day, it's better to ask them to think about how many mandarin oranges they would eat in one day than to ask them to think about how many they would eat in one week or one month).
How can the recommendations from your findings specifically be implemented?
First, determine how long the promoted product can last for; if it's 1 month, say in the advertisement "Stock up for 1 month;" Next, determine how fast the target consumers consume the promoted product; if they consume a few units of the product per day, say in the advertisement " Stock up for 1 month; Think about how many you would consume in 1 day."
