Flight. Car rental. Hotel. That might be the order in which you’ll use the services, but researchers at Stanford University and Columbia University wanted to see what happened when the order was changed around. How do the number of alternatives interact with the choice order in the speed of consumers’ decisions?
They asked study participants to choose one each from among five flight options, fifteen car rental arrangements, and ten hotels. But the order of the three choices was varied for different groups of the participants.
It turned out that the choice of the hotel was quicker when it followed the choice among the fifteen rental cars than when it followed the choice among the five flights. Why was this, and how can you put this finding to use with your shoppers?
The Stanford/Columbia researchers’ explanation is that the consumers faced with selecting one from among fifteen options were overwhelmed by the possibilities, so adopted a “good enough” mindset. Other researchers have called it “satisficing.” With this mindset, the consumers make the choice of the hotel relatively quickly.
On the other hand, those consumers who started with the filtering of five options could hold out for “find the best.” When they moved on to the hotel choice, that mindset caused them to spend more time on the task. Researchers refer to this as “maximizing,” and maximizing can freeze consumers into indecision.
The Stanford/Columbia researchers say that once you get into either a satisficing or maximizing frame of mind, you’ll tend to shop that way for the rest of your store visit.
Other researchers would explain the finding a little differently: It’s more tiring to choose among fifteen alternatives than among five. Making purchase decisions takes energy. Therefore, those who started out with the fifteen-alternative task didn’t have as much perseverance when they got to the hotel task, so they got it over with quickly.
These researchers would say that if the study participants had been given a brief break before moving on to the hotel choice, they would have taken the time to do it more carefully.
The implication for you: If you want to encourage satisficing in your shopper, begin with the more complex decisions among alternatives and then promptly move on through the other choices to be made.
Click below for more:
Plan for Customers to Satisfice
Dissolve Decision Paralysis
Guide Choice by Sequence of Presentation
Make It Easy to Choose Two
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