["Psychology &Marketing, EarlyView. ", "\nABSTRACT\nScarcity is a well‐established marketing tactic, yet its effects in digital retail environments remain less well understood. This research examines how different types of online scarcity cues influence consumer behavior and whether some cues may produce unintended responses. Across four experiments, we compare product‐based, social, and temporal scarcity cues in e‐commerce contexts. Study 1 shows that while all cues increase perceived scarcity, social and temporal cues selectively increase consumers' intentions to seek the same product from alternative e‐retailers, whereas product‐based scarcity does not. Study 2 demonstrates that perceived inconvenience mediates this effect. Study 3 further reveals a serial process in which social and temporal scarcity cues reduce perceived information credibility, which heightens perceived inconvenience and increases intentions to seek the product elsewhere. Study 4 extends these findings to a retailer‐choice context, showing that a temporal/cart‐hold scarcity cue increases consumers' likelihood of choosing a competing retailer offering the same product at the same price. Together, these findings show that online scarcity cues can influence consumer behavior through credibility‐ and convenience‐related mechanisms, beyond the value‐based processes emphasized in prior scarcity research, and offer implications for retailers regarding the selective use of scarcity tactics in digital environments.\n"]