Products "made by mistake" sell more, and command up to 72% more
People find products made by mistake more unique, and pay more for them. In one study, an accidental mark on a painting raised willingness to pay by 71.8%. Instead of hiding a misprint or an odd batch, own it and frame it as a one-off. The effect fades for purely functional products and new brands.
Quick Summary
Across 7 experiments and an analysis of 3,114 eBay auction sales, researchers found people prefer, want, and pay more for products made by mistake. An accidental mark on a painting made shoppers 27.3% more likely to buy and willing to pay 71.8% more. An accidentally enriched chocolate was wanted 26% more often. The effect held even when the mistake made the product objectively worse.
So when a batch comes out wrong, the misprint, the off-color run, the odd flavor, do not quietly discount it or hide it. Own the mistake, explain what happened, and frame it as a genuine one-off. The catch: this works for products bought for pleasure and character, not for purely functional items, and not for brand-new sellers.
Key Finding
+72%
The increase in willingness to pay for a piece of art that carried an accidental mark, versus the clean version.
Reich, Kupor & Smith, 2017
Every store occasionally ends up with stock that is not quite right: a misprinted logo, the wrong color mix, an unplanned variation. The instinct is to hide it, refund it, or dump it at a discount. The research suggests a more profitable move: lean in.
People consistently valued the mistaken version more. Beyond the +71.8% willingness to pay for marked art, shoppers were 26% keener on an accidentally enriched chocolate, 18.8% more likely to want a song with an unplanned sound, and 10.3% more likely to order a dish with a mistaken ingredient. Notably, the lift appeared even when the mistake arguably made the product worse.
Why it works
A genuine mistake makes a product feel out of the ordinary, and we read out-of-the-ordinary as unique. Uniqueness is attractive, so the flawed item becomes more desirable, not less. It even held regardless of how many units existed, so this is not simple scarcity. It is the story of the one-off.
What to do on your Shopify store
- Name the mistake and tell the story. A short product-page note or a social post: "A printing error gave this run an off-center logo. We think it looks better. Here are the last 40."
- Frame it as a limited one-off, and stop when the odd stock is gone. A real, justified deadline sharpens the appeal.
- Lean on the founder voice if you are a small brand with a face, which makes the story credible.
- Do not fake it. Manufacturing "mistakes" as a gimmick, or overusing the tactic, will erode trust fast.
Where it does not work
The effect disappears for products bought purely for function (a supplement, a deodorant) where uniqueness is irrelevant, and for brand-new sellers, because we assume beginners just make errors. It was not tested on luxury goods, where a flaw may instead raise quality doubts.
This is product storytelling, the same lever behind showing where the money goes and fewer-ingredient framing. Use it where character sells.
Research: Reich, T., Kupor, D.M. & Smith, R.K. (2017). Journal of Consumer Research. New York University, Boston University, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucx089
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