Urgency and scarcity is so often manufactured that I can definitely see this in the dark pattern side of things. As well, whether or not there really is only 3 left, they chose to add the messaging as high impact alert messaging and it's definitely intended to be coercive.
All marketing is intended to be coercive of course, but I think you land in dark pattern territory when your coercion is no longer related to the value propositions of your product. Saying "You need this TV because it has great definition!" is just selling your product. But saying "You need this TV because TIM bought one, we only have three left and this deal runs out in 9 minutes!" is just plain old bullying someone into buying, regardless of what the item was.
Often enough too, TIM didn't buy one, there is a backorder of 1000 units being delivered this week, and the deal will just start again after the current ticker finishes.
I found the information on airline websites rather accurate (n seats left at this price). I guess this comes directly from how it's stored in the back end booking system (0..8, 9+ seats per booking class)
On legacy carrier official websites, not OTA or LCC like Ryanair.
All marketing is intended to be coercive of course, but I think you land in dark pattern territory when your coercion is no longer related to the value propositions of your product. Saying "You need this TV because it has great definition!" is just selling your product. But saying "You need this TV because TIM bought one, we only have three left and this deal runs out in 9 minutes!" is just plain old bullying someone into buying, regardless of what the item was.
Often enough too, TIM didn't buy one, there is a backorder of 1000 units being delivered this week, and the deal will just start again after the current ticker finishes.