Compare Features to Ease Overload

In developed economies, consumers like to believe they’ve many alternatives to select from. However, when faced with an abundance of choices, the consumer often feels overwhelmed with information. Researchers at University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University find that large product assortments attract shoppers to a store or ecommerce site, but once there, many of the shoppers will avoid making a purchase because they’re not sure what’s best. They’ll go on to something else, at least for a while. And during that while, they might leave your store or website.

      Building on that finding, researchers at University of Delaware and University of Pennsylvania discovered that a way to keep the shopper engaged is to encourage them to focus on product features rather than item alternatives. With the features in mind, the person can start rating each alternative until they come to a decision.

      So in your advertising, point out that you offer a large number of choices. When the shopper starts their shopping with you, display categories within categories to highlight the abundance of alternatives. But then recognize the potential for information overload. To make things easier for the shopper, use similar wording in describing the features of each product. And provide tables that list features across the top, the names of a small selection of product alternatives along the left side, and checkmarks in the cells to indicate which product has which features.

• In the product descriptions and in the table, list features concisely. But also outside the table, state the benefit of each feature: “Low rolling resistance gives you better fuel efficiency.”
• As a general rule, list no more than five of the most important product features and no more than five of the product alternatives. However, if the product alternatives are very similar in what features they have, then include one or two trivial features that one or two of the alternatives have, but the others don’t. This helps unfreeze the decision maker who is immobilized by information overload.
• Business-to-business shoppers might do a comprehensive objective weighted analysis of each product by feature. But the vast majority of shoppers will end up making the purchase as much on intuitive emotion as on the basis of scientific analysis. In fact, this usually results in better decisions. Therefore, there is a risk in you probing too much for reasons once the customer has made a decision.

Click below for more: 

Protect Shoppers From Too Many Choices 

Offer Resisters One More Item 

Use Signage to Categorize Items 

Give Experts Novel Product Categories 

Analyze What Your Shoppers Say and Do