Tip 276) Sometimes offering less not more is best

We often think that we need to be everything to everyone. 

​We don't want to lose a sale, so we keep piling on the options to cater to every customer. 

When you offer customers too many choices, you take away their ability to make quick decisions.

The more options you offer, the more confused they can get, and the more likely they are to need time to think about it.

​This is called Decision Paralysis and can lead to anxiety, and even unhappiness. 

Starbucks is a classic example of offering too many choices. They state they offer over 80,000 drink options with so many different beans, coffee types, milk types, etc., to choose from. We either take ages to choose or choose what we always have as it's easier and safer. If we try something new, we can often get anxious that we made the wrong choice and won't like the new drink so much! The same thing happens with takeaways – most of us stick to what we know and order the same every time. 

There is a famous jam study that proves this point further conducted by Sheena Iyengar (The Art of Choosing).

She set up a jam sample display in a gourmet market, and every 2 hours switched from 6 sample choices to 24 sample choices. On average, each shopper tasted 2 jams regardless of the size of the display. 60% of customers were drawn to the larger display, with only 3% of them actually buying jam. Whilst only 40% stopped at the smaller display, a whopping 30% actually purchased a jar.  

Now isn't that interesting? 

​Jo x

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