Randomly Arrange Limited Product Sets

Long ago, I’d hear grocery store operators claim that shoppers buy more varieties of soup when the varieties are shelved in random order rather than alphabetically. The explanation went like this: The shopper’s interested in finding a particular variety. Maybe chicken noodle, maybe tomato, maybe clam chowder. They look for that particular variety, but because there’s no order, the shopper’s eyes run over many varieties. As they do so, they start thinking, “Gee, maybe I could use that variety, too.” They end up selecting extras.

      More recently, researchers at University of Pennsylvania and University of Illinois confirmed that random arrangement of a product set can lead to more buying, but not necessarily for the reason the grocery store operators had told me. The reason the random arrangement works, it seems, is that it gives the shopper a feeling of there being more to choose from. It takes some time for the shopper to run their eyes over what’s there, and the increased time translates in the shopper’s mind to the impression of a larger assortment.

      An impression of more to choose from is helpful to you, the retailer, when the actual number of choices is limited. But the researchers found that if there are lots of soup varieties or toothpastes or baseball gloves, creating for the shopper a sense that the assortment is even larger is a problem. Immobilized with indecision, the shopper turns around and leaves.

      Also, a random arrangement irritates shoppers when there’s a logical order to the assortment. Let’s say you run a hardware store and somebody comes in looking for a particular size screw. “Oh, they’re all mixed up on the shelves,” you say. “Keep looking until you find it.”

      When you’re offering many choices, categorize. But when the alternatives are quite limited, arrange alternatives randomly.