|
|
Second Monday of the Year.
This Week: The Jam Study
|
|
Two tables. Same jam. Wildly different results.
|
|
30%
6 jams on display
bought jam
|
|
|
3%
24 jams on display
bought jam
|
|
|
Ten times higher conversion. Same store. Same day. Same jam.
|
|
|
|
The Jam Study: A California Grocery Store, 1999
Source: Iyengar & Lepper (2000), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
True story. Researchers set up a jam tasting booth in a California grocery store. Two tables. One had 24 varieties to choose from. The other had just 6.
People stopped at both tables about equally. Everyone was curious. But when it came time to actually buy...
With 24 jams, only 3% bought. With 6 jams, 30% bought. Ten times the conversion rate from the exact same product, just by reducing choice.
|
|
|
|
The interesting part isn't the overwhelm. It's what happened in their heads.
With 6 options, you could evaluate them. Strawberry or blueberry? Classic or adventurous? You'd pick one, feel good about it, and move on.
But with 24? Every choice you considered meant rejecting 23 others. What if the apricot-ginger was better than the raspberry-vanilla? What if you picked wrong? What if there was a perfect jam sitting right there and you missed it?
So people didn't just struggle. They froze. And then they walked away. Because when the options multiply, it stops being about choosing what you want. It becomes about avoiding what you might regret.
• Cognitive overload from too many options
• Fear of making the wrong choice
• Analysis paralysis leads to inaction
|
|
|
|
You see it everywhere now.
|
Netflix
You scroll for 30 minutes. Nothing looks quite right. You end up rewatching The Office.
|
|
Subscription Boxes
People pay $30/month for someone else to choose their coffee, clothes, skincare. Not because they can't shop. Because choosing is work.
|
|
Phone Settings
47 toggles. You opened it once, saw all the options, and left everything on default.
|
|
|
|
|
The best systems don't give you more options. They give you fewer decisions.
They don't ask you to optimize everything. They make the good choice the easy choice, and then let you move on.
Because the goal isn't to have infinite possibilities. It's to make a decision you feel okay about and get back to your life.
|
|
|
|
|
|
