Too much choice?

The Bottom Line

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals, Business

4.6 • 606 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you've ever felt bamboozled by the sheer range of biscuits at your local supermarket or in a quandary over which pair of headphones to buy from the plethora on offer, then you're not alone.

Studies suggest that consumers can struggle to make decisions when there is too much choice. So how much choice should businesses offer their customers? And how can retailers help us navigate the dizzying array of products out there?

Evan Davis brings together a perfectly chosen group of experts to discuss.

GUESTS

Dr. Paul Marsden, Consumer Pscyhologist, Business School, London College of Fashion , University of Arts London

Laurence Mitchell, Buying Director, Electricals and Home Technology, John Lewis Partnership

Donna Smith, Managing Director, Thursday Cottage Ltd.

and

Paul Stainton, Retail Consultant, IPLC

PRODUCTION TEAM

Producer: Julie Ball Researcher: Marianna Brain Editor: China Collins Sound: Rod Farquhar and Neil Churchill Production Co-ordinators: Sophie Hill and Siobhan Reed

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello. Our topic today, well, it's a really good one. It's a blend of lots of different areas of business. We've got some retailing. We've got some production operations. We've got some consumer psychology. And I should say it is all very, very relevant to the cost of living crisis that we are enduring.
0:23.7	Our topic today is choice and whether you can have too much of it.
0:27.8	Because you can go to a supermarket, you can gaze upon the shelves and marvel at the ability of companies to offer so much choice.
0:35.2	26 different ways to floss your teeth. Or take this example, shortbread.
0:41.1	Last night, I looked online at a popular supermarket website and I found a couple of dozen varieties
0:46.6	of shortbread biscuits. Highlandall butter, all butter chocolate chip, Belgian chocolate chunk,
0:53.9	blonde chocolate chunk. There were other
0:56.2	flavours such as ginger, maple and piquin. There were basic ones, taste the difference ones,
1:01.6	and they were coming in shapes from fingers to round to petticoat tails and two varieties of
1:07.0	gluten-free. It is extraordinary, but is it too much? It may be costing us. I was struck
1:13.4	during the early pandemic, hearing a food company on this program tell us that they'd managed to
1:18.6	keep the supermarket shelves full at a very difficult time by reducing range and increasing output.
1:26.5	But there's a consumer dimension to this too. Choice can almost be
1:30.5	paralyzing, can't it? Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder and learning to
1:35.5	choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, says the author Barry Schwartz in
1:41.5	his book, The Paradox of Choice. Can you have too much choice?
1:46.0	Well, we'll discuss all of these things, but with food inflation causing headaches all round,
1:51.0	is this a time for shops to delist half the items they sell and use the money saved to cut prices?
1:58.5	Well, we have assembled a great choice of guests to guide us through this.
2:02.4	Let us meet them. And first up is Paul Marsden, chartered psychologist, specialising in consumer
2:07.5	motivation and well-being. He's in the business school at the London College of Fashion, part of
2:11.9	the University of the Arts, London. Paul. There is a study in this area, much quoted by people who look at it, the jam
	...

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