Part
2: What Should I Buy – Practical versus Pleasurable Options
by
Victor Antonio, BSEE, MBA
In
Part 1 (What
Should I Buy – A Look at Choices and Options in Selling)
I describe how buyers may feel regret for not making a buying decision
and how that decision affects how they make subsequent decisions.
Now let me make things a bit more complicated by throwing in some
real-life scenarios. First, Let me ask two questions.
Question 1: If a group of people were offered a tray of food containing two types of their favorite cookies and two types of their favorite fruit and they could only choose one item, which item would the majority of them opt for, a cookie or a fruit?
Questions 2: Now, if the tray size was increased to include six types of cookies and six types of fruit, and they could only select one item, would the percentage of people who chose the item you selected in Question 1 go up or down?
For example, if you chose cookie in the first question, would the percentage of people who chose a cookie go up or down if the options in the tray increased to six types of fruits and six types of cookies? Does increasing the assortment size (i.e., options) influence how someone chooses or more importantly, what they choose?
One study (Sela, Berger and Liu, 2009) found that we make decisions on what to eat (or buy) based on how we are able to rationalize or justify our selection. The study revealed that every decision we make can be placed under two broad categories:
1) Utilitarian – Where we make a choice based on the practicality of that choice.
2) Hedonic – Where we make a choice based on the amount of pleasure we’ll derive from that choice
What the study set out to investigate was whether or not increasing the assortment size would cause someone to be more ‘practical’ about their choice or would they choose to follow the ‘pleasure’ principle of immediate gratification. What they found was interesting and insightful.
They discovered that having to choose from a large assortment tends to be more challenging and often leads the consumer to choose items they can easily ‘justify’; that seem practical. In other words, choosing from a large assortment size increases the tendency to select or buy the more utilitarian option (practical) as opposed to the hedonic (pleasurable) option.
To prove their hypotheses, the following two experiments were
conducted:
Phase
1: A tray was offered to 125 students that had two options - Regular Ice Cream (Pleasure) or Low Fat Ice Cream (Practical). The result? Only 20% choose Low Fat ice cream.
Phase 2: This time 5 options of each flavor of ice cream were offered in both Regular and Low Fat. The result? This time 37%, almost twice as many, choose Low Fat ice cream.
Conclusion: When more ice cream choices were offered, more people decided to opt for the Low Fat
(practical) option.
Experiment 2: Cookies (Pleasure) & Fruit (Practical)
Phase 1: A tray was offered to 75 students with two types of cookies (chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin) and two types of fruits (banana, apple) with a sign reading, “Please help yourself to one item.” The result? A whopping 55% chose
a fruit (Practical).
Phase 2: Another tray was offered to the students containing six types of fruits and six types of cookies with a sign reading, “Please help yourself to one item.” The result? Now 76% of the student chose the fruit (Practical).
Conclusion: Again, when more choices were offered, more people decided to opt for the fruit
(practical) option.
We’ve already established that when there are too many options
available, the buyer or consumer may choose to defer making a decision to avoid making a bad decision (risk/loss aversion).
In the case where the consumer has to make a decision, the consumer will choose the option that is easier to ‘justify’
(i.e., more practical). The bottom line is this, as the assortment size gets bigger, so does the tendency to choose the more practical (i.e., easier to justify) of the two options.
In selling it’s good to keep this study in mind. Many times we tend to offer the buyer too many options which can overwhelm them causing them to forego making any decision. In the case where they have to make a decision, the buyer is more likely to choose the practical solution over the pleasurable ‘bells and whistles’ solution.
If today you’re offering multiple product sets or solutions and you find that the buyer just can’t seem to decide, you may want to reduce how many products you offer at one time in the future.
Also, sometimes we just want the client to make a purchase and become a client with the hopes that they’ll buy more in the future.
If that’s the case, you can always retreat to the most practical option (i.e., the no-brainer)
you're offering and increase the chance of you selling it by helping the buyer ‘rationalize’
the decision to do so.
Victor
Antonio, Sales Influence
"Finding
the Why in Buy"
Reference:
Sela, Aner, Jonah Berger and Wendy Liu (2008), "Variety, Vice and
Virtue: How Assortment Size Influences Option Choice," Journal of
Consumer Research, 941-951.
In
