BOSTON – Our retail environment has changed dramatically in the last century. A grocery store may have up to 285 varieties of cookies, 75 ice teas, 275 cereals or 175 salad dressings to choose from today.
What’s the affect of all this choice? So much confusion that customers may delay their decision or feel paralyzed against making one. More brands and more choice does not necessarily mean greater customer satisfaction.
The impact of too many changes and choice was examined yesterday by professor Barry Schwartz in presenting the findings found in his book The Paradox of Choice during his session Tuesday afternoon at the CTAM Summit.
Remember when we had only one phone company and you had two decisions to make when purchasing. You picked the colour you liked (black, white, off-white, maybe a few others) and whether you wanted wall mount or table top. A simple decision. No stress. Consumers today can often be overwhelmed with shopping various suppliers and having to chose a model from hundreds of choices that best suites their needs – and project how they will use it. They weigh all this and then hope they made the right decision.
Lets face it, consumers have more choices than they need in everything – except good political candidates, perhaps. Here are samples of the professor’s research that shows how too many choices could paralyze a customer’s decision-making ability.
Speed dating – 12 options vs. six options. More choices were made for a match with just six people to chose from. We are often overwhelmed with "more" and lose focus of all our judgment criteria and may end up keying on just one of our criteria when there are more options, said Schwartz.
24 different jams or six jams with a dollar coupon. The majority did not buy jam at all when there were 24 offered as they were too frustrated to make the decision.
Mutual fund investing. One million people using 200 fund companies were analyzed. The fund companies with fewer funds to chose from fared better. With too many options there was more procrastination to participate.
Too much choice of brand and prices can effect satisfaction and leave consumers feeling miserable, said Schwartz. They may regret their decision, second guess it, or anticipate regret. They often think they maybe missed something that was better for them.
For a more personal example, I just started shopping for a new LCD screen TV lately and was unsure which model, brand, size and features would be best for my needs for years to come. I still haven’t purchased and am no further ahead.
Having so much choice creates a need to do more homework, which takes more of consumers’ valuable time. Take my shopping for this new TV. I had to leave the decision for over a month and now need to start over again because of new models and sales prices. This is only one category of many highly competitive, crowded markets. Are the customers of BDUs – or potential customers – feeling overwhelmed with changing of packaging, price changes, new technology, bundling details?
It used to be when we had modest expectations we were less apt to be disappointed. “Everything was better when everything was worse," is how it goes. So is all this change and choice good news or bad news? The cheeky, true, answer of course, is yes.
Janice Lee is principal, JLL & Associates, reporting from CTAM Summit in Boston for Cartt.ca.
