Complicate Life Decisions for the Concerned

The retailer’s edge comes from knowing when to make exceptions to the more general rules of shopper psychology. One example has to do with the degree of complication of decisions for the consumer.
     In general, we want to simplify choices. Consumers like to take mental shortcuts. We attract shoppers by advertising a good abundance of alternatives, but 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. These arise with 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 be devoting more time and mental effort when the process seems at first impression to be an easy decision.
     Here, rather than helping the consumer find shortcuts, we should tolerate the mechanisms the consumer is using to add complexity. The Pennsylvania/Columbia researchers identified these three as the most common ones:

• 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.

     In such circumstances, inexperienced retailers could find themselves feeling frustrated by the indecision and then reacting to the frustration by pressuring the shopper or by reassuring the shopper 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 life decision 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.”

Click below for more:
Let Shoppers Go Through Their Rituals
Comfort the Confused