Increase your sales with less products in your offering
Are you proud of the number of products or varieties you’re offering?
Are you convinced offering so many choices actually increases your sales?
You might be wrong!
Behavioural scientists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper conducted a (now classic) study in order to find out if offering too much choice made people indecisive. They set up a booth in a large supermarket, well known for it’s abundance of choice, where shoppers could sample a number of jam flavours all from the same relatively inexpensive brand.
During the study, the number of flavours were varied so that either 6 or 24 flavours were displayed. The selection was rotated hourly. After tasting, shoppers were given a discount coupon. So regardless of the flavours encountered at the booth, shoppers were eventually confronted with the full range of flavours in the aisle.
The results were surprising: of the shoppers passing the extensive selection of jams, 60% stopped vs 40% of those who passed the limited selection.
But from those who were able to sample the extensive selection, only 3% actually bought the jam compared to a staggering 30% from those who had sampled from the 6 flavours.
Overall result is that 6 times as much jam was sold when there were only 6 compared to 24 flavours to sample from!
The researchers suggested that too many choices, although highly appealing at first, might lead to frustration in the decision making process. Too many options to differentiate might result in the customer not being able to engage with the task at hand, leading to an overall reduction in interest in the product and a decrease in sales.
We think there might even be a fear of loss involved: ‘what if I pick the wrong choice?’
When Procter & Gamble reduced the number of Head & Shoulders varieties from 26 to 15, they experienced an immediate 10% increase in sales. Not as dramatic as Sheena 
and Mark’s jam study, but still too large to go unnoticed.
Offering a limited set of products or services for a market or as a solution will also make it more likely for people to retain the main features and differences.
Offering too few products however might mean you miss a part of the market you are addressing. As usual, finding a good balance is key here.
On the other hand your marketing collateral and website will be less complex as you only need to explain a few products and their differences.
Less products mean:
- Less product development
- Less product maintenance
- Less manuals to write or to keep up to date
- Less product changes in manufacturing
- Less inventories
- Less marketing costs
- Less sales trainings
- Less storage space
- Less raw materials
All of this leads to less overhead costs.
Your lower operational costs can be reflected by lower pricing.
And as a ‘bonus’, you might even make the decision for your customers easier, sell more and win market share!
Have you ever wondered whether you’re giving your customers too much choice?
More from LEADS Explorer
- Should you take ‘No’ as final in Sales?
- How mature is your business ? Why it affects your sales
- How to improve your sales pitch: shorten it
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Walmart & other retailers are of the same opinion. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597382334357329.html
This brings to mind the old saying, “niches leads to riches”. Instead of trying to be the “jack of all trades” you end up being the “master of none”. These age-old cliches remain true even today. Learn to focus on a niche, market to people who are interested in your specific product and they’ll start beating down your doors…or hopefully loading your server with orders.