The Paradox Of Choice

How does giving your consumers more options influence the purchase outcome?

There is an interesting amount of research around choices being presented to consumers and the effect that this has on their purchase decisions.

Dr. Nguyen Beo Thai has explored this idea of the paradox of choice. Consumers have a choice, but there are so many options that it becomes difficult to decide. When there are too many decisions, consumers become overloaded and paralyzed, and in the end, these same consumers do not make a choice at all.

One study conducted by Iyengar & Lepper details the effects of more choices presented to consumers versus less choices. The results can be seen in the image below.

This study shows that when consumers are presented with more choices, they are more likely to abandon the purchase.

However, an alternate study demonstrates that this effect is reduced dramatically when the price of the products are lower.

Thus, depending on the price point, the number of options you present to consumers may differ.

Patagonia & Hyper-Choice

Patagonia, interestingly enough, has a vast array of choices available for consumers. By better categorising their products and reducing the choices available to consumers, Patagonia has the opportunity to increase their profits and reduce the number of consumers abandoning the checkout process.

This can be tested by Patagonia first, before actually putting it out into the market. This sort of consumer research and testing can have an enormous impact on the company.