The internet is an amazing place. Access to information changes everything, our ability to research topics, the speed at which information (and misinformation) travel and our buying habits. In the past, a purchase of any item was based on the opinions of the salespeople we meet, opinions of friends and limited research (i.e. The library or magazines like Consumer Reports). But not anymore, information is everywhere.

This Christmas I was reminded of Malcolm Gladwell’s comments on choice in Blink:

Conventional economic wisdom, of course, says that the more choices consumers have, the more likely they are to buy, because it is easier for consumers to find the jam that perfectly fits their needs.  But Iyengar found the opposite to be true

He is referring to Sheena Iyengar’s study ‘When Choice is Demotivating:Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?’. The crux of the study is that less choice lead to higher sales and greater customer satisfaction:

These three experiments which were conducted in field and laboratory settings show that people are more likely to purchase exotic jams or gourmet chocolates, and undertake optional class essay assignments, when offered a limited array of 6 choices rather than an extensive array of 24 or 30 choices. Moreover, participants actually reported greater subsequent satisfaction with their selections and wrote better essays when their original set of options had been restricted rather than expanded. Implications for future research are discussed.

In fact:

6-choice booth:  30% of visitors bought

24-choice booth:  3% of visitors bought

This was my life prior to Christmas. We had decided on snowshoes as the family gift and conducted a broad search to determine the right choice. That search induced paralysis as we found more and more information on the topic and choices, and began to become overwhelmed with information and the bigger challenge – what is the right information?

• Salespeople said different things
• Friends gave different advice
• Websites sold based on different elements, and commenters on those web sites had different opinions

It took a lot longer than expected. But our desire to purchase and a deadline (Christmas) pushed us through the challenge. But it was very complex and the Internet has not solved that issue – the crushing advance of too much choice.

In the article ‘Craigslist: In praise of primitive’, blogger Andrew McAfee talks about how simplicity works for Craigslist.

Every time I use it I’m reminded of wiki inventor Ward Cunningham’s fantastic question: "What’s the simplest thing that could possibly work?"

CL CEO Jim Buckmaster understands that this is the right question to guide his company "I hear this all the time," he says. "You guys are so primitive, you are like cavemen. Don’t you have any sense of aesthetic? But the people I hear it from are invariably working for firms that want the job of redoing the site. In all the complaints and requests we get from users, this is never one of them. Time spent on the site, the number of people who post — we’re the leader. It could be we’re doing one or two things right."

Keep it simple.

And for us, what did we end up with? Well we ended up going smaller than the salespeople recommended by a little bit, larger than our friends recommended (because they only go on packed trails) and with GV Snowshoes, a Canadian brand that has a few key features – including the 180 degree articulation (the ‘energy soft system’) on the toe which makes them very easy to walk in and the super easy buckles.

Painful? Yes. In fact, we had to get them from 2 different companies, but successful. Just too complex, and had it not been for the deadline, we may have delayed the purchase … or had it been 24 jams, I probably would have walked (smile).