Ask Roxanne!
Dear Roxanne,
I'm on the product development committee of a small stationery company. We recently voted to triple the number of designs we offer. Our current line fits on a single 8½x11 sheet, which I've always considered a plus. The new line just seems confusing to me—too many choices! But when I said this, they laughed and said there's no such thing. Am I crazy to think you can have too many choices?
– Pam W.
Dear Pam,
Not only are you NOT crazy, but there's solid research to back you up. There's even a name for this: the Paradox of Choice. Whole BOOKS have been written about this—but I suppose the laughing yahoos on your committee aren't much into reading. Anyway, I've written this week's column about this fascinating phenomenon. Next time they laugh at you, whip it out!
– Roxanne
Do you have a question about how to handle a situation or a relationship in the workplace? Ask Roxanne!
Enough is Enough — And Too Much is Too Much
There was a fascinating set of studies done in the 1990s around the issue of choice and its influence on consumer behavior. In one of these studies, the researchers set up two booths at several craft fairs. Both sold handmade soaps, but one offered four choices, while the other offered nine.
And which do you think sold more soap? It seems obvious that the one with more choices would satisfy more customer needs and therefore sell more suds. But in fact, the opposite is true. In one fair after another, the stand offering the smaller number of choices sold MUCH more soap.
The researchers tried the same thing in other retail settings—home product parties, retail stores, mall kiosks, even retail websites. The result was always the same—and never even close.
In his 2004 book The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less, psychologist Barry Schwartz argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers.
If you've ever spent a frazzled ten minutes in the modern American toothpaste aisle, you know what he's talking about. Americans today have more choices than any group of people ever have before, but it can make us crazy. When you choose to buy one variety out of three choices, you can be fairly confident in your choice. But when it's one out of 29, there's this nagging voice in the back of your head: Did you choose the best one? Did you account for all of the variables? Is there a better one that you'll later regret not buying? Are you getting suckered into a choice you don't want?
As a result, we get a paradox: The more freedom of choice you get, the more imprisoned we feel by our eventual choices.
This runs counter to the product development process in most companies. If people aren't buying, goes the reasoning, we need to give them more choices. In fact, you might just need to give BETTER choices, not more.
Understanding the Consumer's Process
According to Barry Schwartz, most good consumer decisions involve these steps:
- Figure out your goal or goals. The consumer asks the question, "What do I want?" When faced with the choice to pick a restaurant, a CD, or a movie, we make a choice based upon how we expect the experience to fulfill our goals.
- Evaluate the importance of each goal. This is where we go astray on the used car lot as relatively unimportant things (color, style) overwhelm our judgment of more substantial things.
- Array the options. The more choices you have, the more difficult it is to array and compare them.
- Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your goals.
- Pick the winning option. The more solid the process has been up to this point, the more confident this step will be—and the smaller the likelihood of buyer's remorse.
- Modify goals as needed.
The better we understand this process, the more we can facilitate a good consumer decision process and avoid creating unhelpful anxiety. Everybody wins!
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