Are buyers overwhelmed by too many choices? It’s a question researchers and marketing executives have debated for years, with concerns about choice overload on the one hand and a dizzying increase in the number of variations on the same product (Would you like that chocolate flavored with salted pretzels, rose petals, green tea or lemongrass?) on the other.
A new study by Graduate School of Business professor Itamar Simonson finds that how consumers respond when confronted with a wide array of choices depends on where they are in their decision-making process.
College students who were shown a large selection of jelly bean flavors before deciding whether to buy jelly beans were nearly twice as likely to buy as those who were shown just 10 choices. However, students who were first asked to select their favorite flavor before deciding whether to buy were slightly less likely to end up buying if they had been shown the larger selection.
Overall, Simonson says, the findings indicate that more choices make people more likely to buy, especially if they’re deciding whether to buy a particular category of item.
“In our research, the positive effect of more options outweighed the negative effect of choice overload, though that won’t always be the case,” Simonson says. “People are more likely to walk into a chocolate store if they see that it carries many options. Once they are in the store, they are likely to find something they like and buy it.”
