Customers have unlimited choices when it comes to finding a product. Imagine Lucy is shopping for a dress for her upcoming vacation to Santa Fe. She decides where she wants to shop, visits the website, and navigates to the vacation page. It’s mostly beach-related products so she moves to the dresses page. She lands on a page with 1000s of dresses. She sighs and slowly scrolls through the grid page after page but ultimately bounces.
You might be asking, but isn’t Lucy happy she has so many options and the freedom to choose the best dress for her? The answer is more complicated than you might think. Having choice means being able to choose between a crew neck, v neck, round neck, boat neck, turtle neck, or square neck, not to mention the added choice of color, fabric, fit, and more. Having so many options can be overwhelming for the customer.
The Paradox of Choice
Barry Schwartz breaks this concept down as the paradox of choice in his Ted Talk. In the video, Schwartz calls out two significant issues with an increased number of options; analysis paralysis and buyer’s remorse.
Analysis paralysis is the concept that with multiple choices an individual overthinks the decision-making process. Making a decision becomes such a burden that they abandon taking any action at all.
Buyer’s remorse occurs when customers feel regret about a purchase. After making their selection, the customer is not satisfied and continues to think about the option they did not pick.
56% of visitors dropoff before the product detail page
Keeping this paradox in mind, optimizing online sales becomes a mission to reduce noise at every point in the customer journey that may lead to dropoff. According to Smart Insights, as of August 2020, on average, 56% of e-commerce website visitors drop off before ever viewing a product details page. With so many choices, customers are overwhelmed. Their best option is to use generic filters and browse through the product grid to narrow down their choices.
Curated for You changes the experience from search to selection
Curated for you delivers only the most relevant options reducing decision fatigue and buyer’s remorse. We help merchants change their online shopping experience from search to selection — reducing friction and time in the buyer’s journey. Curations convert more customers quickly.
With CFY, our friend Lucy would visit her favorite website and see the top picks curated just for her based on her vacation. By using CFY’s guided shopping experience, merchants are able to discover insights about their audience, curate unique experiences for each customer, and optimize their marketing and sales strategy.
Interested to see how we could help reduce the effects of the choice paradox on your eCommerce store? We’d love to chat!