As I was eagerly awaiting my husband’s birthday, I planned to gift him a pair of jeans. Now, how difficult could that be? My husband being the meticulous person he is, requested me to show him all the options available on a popular online fashion portal. I obliged, sat with him for the selection of the product assuming the decision-making would take a maximum of 15 minutes. As a working mother of twins, time is the most priced asset for me. Any stretch in a task makes me uncomfortable as it spills over to other tasks. I grew impatient as the process took 20 minutes and my husband was still undecided.

I just quit the process. I was of the notion how many shades of jeans could there be? a maximum of 10? I was wrong and way off the mark. The online shopping portal offered jeans in 29 colors and the total number of options was around 12,940. I abandoned the process and asked him to pick the product of his choice. Did I just encounter Choice Paralysis?

What is choice paralysis?

Choice paralysis is a situation where a person encounters too many options which can paralyze a consumer and lead to either indecisiveness or reverting to the default option. Choice paralysis is common in many situations of everyday life. In the context of retailing, the occurrence of choice paralysis among consumers is an everyday phenomenon due to the advent of huge big box stores and online shopping. The excessive choice indicates that a consumer has to spend more time and effort in processing the information, comparing the alternatives before making the decision. In the above situation, the decision-making would have been quicker with fewer options. But several retailers, especially online retailers, shudder to reduce the variety of products.  In offline retail, switching costs are high so one would think twice before they venture to a different store in case of limited product choices. Whereas low switching costs motivate consumers to switch to a different website or online shopping portal in case of the non-availability of products.

Many organizations and marketers were of the strong belief that the higher the choice, the higher is the sales, and the higher is the satisfaction. However, numerous researchers and psychologists like Barry Schwartz, Sheena Iyengar, and Mark Lepper have proved otherwise. The famous jam experiment by Iyengar and Lepper [1] provided clear and precise results that even though the higher choice jam booth attracted consumers, the purchases were significantly higher by 27% in the lower choice booth. A similar experiment was conducted in the E-commerce settings on endless scroll. The endless scroll is the process of vertically scrolling through a huge chunk of content without the appearance of the website footer’s tab. Endless scroll or infinite scroll was assumed to increase the items viewed and eventually purchases and this was tested by the Etsy team. However, the results proved otherwise, the conversion rate dropped by 22% and consumers stopped using the search toolbar for finding items, they were just scrolling endlessly without making a decision. Another report by Smart assistant [2] provided similar results, a whopping 54% of the consumers quit purchasing from certain brands or retailers owing to choice difficulty.  Barry Schwartz a famous American psychologist has strongly put forward his opinions on the choice paradox over the past few years. He is a strong patron of less choice, fewer rules, he quoted that “Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard”. And I couldn’t agree more with Barry Schwartz. Decision-making is becoming hard, and the stage of life in which I am, am not just a decision-maker for myself but also my family. Hence, I would prefer a life that is relatively easier for decision-making.

Consequences of choice paralysis and alternatives to prevent choice paralysis in retailing

Choice paralysis can lead to cart abandonment in online shopping portals, increasing wish lists, save for later. Unlike offline retail, online retailers do not have a space crunch and to ensure that consumers spend more time on their online shopping portals they provide a huge assortment of products. If not conversion, consumers are still hooked to the online shopping portal viewing products.

But in the case of offline retail, several retailers are experimenting with limited assortment. The most renowned retailers who have gained success with Limited Assortment Service (LAS) are the two big retailers of Germany; Aldi and Lidl. Their hard discount is based on a narrow product assortment [3].

In the online settings, the findings of Spenner & Freeman (2012) [4] revealed that decision simplicity is a major driver for consumer stickiness. I would second this finding now. However, if I were in the same situation a couple of years ago, maybe I would have enjoyed choosing from a wide product catalog. The younger me would have appreciated the freedom to decide, a rarity at that time. Maybe making a difficult choice would have kindled a sense of victory.

Choice paralysis can manifest in other facets of life as well that are more important than shopping. For example, choosing a life partner or investment schemes. Such manifestations can hamper growth in life. It may stop a person from moving on. I wish there was a magic wand to make difficult choices, but wait! which wand do I pick first?