Look Simple, But Offer Complexity

In general, we all want to simplify choices. Consumers like to take mental shortcuts. Retailers attract shoppers by advertising a good abundance of alternatives, then move the prospect toward purchase by offering tools the shopper can use to deftly filter the choices.
     Yet researchers at University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University found circumstances in which retailers do well to complicate choice. Among these circumstances are purchase decisions the consumer considers as having potentially life-changing consequences and the alternatives are quite clear-cut. Some of these situations, such as buying a house, extend over time. Others, such as selecting funeral arrangements, could last no more than a day or two.
     These types of decisions have to do with people’s careers, homes, caretakers, and life partners. Because of the significance of such choices, the person believes they should devote time and mental effort even if the process seems at first to constitute a straightforward selection. Times of economic strain often increase the number of such decisions.
     Here, rather than help the consumer find shortcuts, tolerate how the consumer adds complexity:

• She focuses on the choice that does seem clearly best, but then exaggerates the importance of what are actually insignificant disadvantages of that choice. 
• He changes the criteria for decision making he had previously decided to use so that the decision making has to start over. 
• She keeps the same criteria, but agonizes over the relative weighting. 

     Resist pressuring the shopper or reassuring that the decision really is an easy one. A better alternative is to acknowledge to the shopper the significance of the decision and reflect, without criticism, on the convolution the shopper has introduced. You’ll be complicating, rather than simplifying, the lifestyle choice in order to help the consumer satisfy a decision making need.
     “Decisions like this are very important, so I fully understand your exploring all sides. You’re starting the decision making process again so you can look at each part in detail. That will take time and mental energy you want to put into this task.”

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

Click below for more: 
Complicate Life Decisions for the Concerned 
Simplify the Shopping