PurposeMarketers make an effort to affect consumers through scarcity marketing thus shaping the perception of scarcity and creating desirability for consumers. To expand the scarcity-expensiveness-desirability model and to enhance insights for practical applications, this study modifies the causal relationship among two types of scarcity, three types of expansiveness and desirability.Design/methodology/approachThis study surveyed 400 Taipei city residents who had purchase experience with luxury brands products in Taiwan. The study employed structural equation modeling as empirical analysis.FindingsThe empirical results show that limited-quantity scarcity main influences perceived social status and then affects desirability. The second path is that limited-quantity scarcity influences perceived uniqueness and then affects desirability. Therefore, perceived social status and perceived uniqueness dominate the majority of effects on desirability because they are the recognition of the individual compared to others, especially when applied to luxury goods.Practical implicationsBecause limited-quantity scarcity has a greater impact on desirability than limited-time scarcity in the empirical results, marketers can adopt limited-quantity scarcity messages that are better than limited-time scarcity, to increase consumers’ desire to purchase luxury goods.Originality/valueThe first novelty of this study is dividing scarcity marketing into limited-quantity and limited-time scarcity in the scarcity-expensiveness-desirability model. This study extends expensiveness in the scarcity-expensiveness-desirability model with a complete demonstration, that is, perceived social status, perceived uniqueness and perceived value, which is the second novelty of this study.