Paradox of Choice

Have you ever hear of the “Paradox of Choice?” It’s an interesting concept that was popularized by American psychologist Barry Schwartz when he published his book, The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, in 2004. Schwartz studied economics and psychology and became intrigued by westerns happiness levels based on the amount of presented choices.

Essentially, when you have an overabundance of options, it actually leads to less happiness and fewer sales. It’s crazy to think this is the case, considering you’d think having more options would mean you would be appealing to more people. But it actually has the opposite effect. Here’s what happens… as humans, we’re sick of making decisions. Downright tired of it.

So when a potential customer gets overwhelmed by too many options, they’re more likely to simply walk away without making a decision or a purchase at all. It almost puts them in a state of paralysis: they have too many choices, and too much thinking is required. Not to mention the increased likelihood of buyer’s remorse. Questions like, “Maybe I should have picked the grey hat instead of the black hat?” come into play. If only one option were available, that wouldn’t even have entered the customer's mind.

In the book, they mention an experiment they ran at a grocery store. One booth offers 24 jams, while the other offers only 6. While more people stopped by the booth with more variety, consumers made far fewer purchases. So the booth with far fewer options ended up doing more sales. So, the point of this blog post is to consider this when offering merchandise. If you want to explore different color options instead of 3 different color tees, start with one color. Sell that one tee shirt color as a limited-edition run to create a call-to-action with your customers: “We have a super limited supply of this color, and we will NOT be restocking this color again - so get it while you still can!” This type of call-to-action is more motivating because it leverages the fear of missing out (FOMO). Once that T-shirt color is sold out, feature another limited-edition color. This keeps people coming back for more. If you’re interested in learning more about FOMO, limited-edition swag, and being more strategic with your merch release, check out our other post here.