By: Jennifer Mann, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

April 23, 2006, Kansas City Star

Apr. 23--Tami Clifton is in full command as a master dog trainer and groomer, but when it comes to mastering decisions in the cereal aisle, she can become a bit dazed.

"Oh, I can walk up and down the aisle five or six times," Clifton said. "I compare prices, calories, carbs, fiber. It's dizzying. In the end, I usually end up buying the same cereal I always do, Raisin Bran."

With a typical cereal aisle in a grocery store stocked with 300 choices or more, it's understandable that Clifton and many others can become paralyzed and unable to make decisions. There are more products to choose from, packaged in more shapes and sizes, and more product information and prices to process.

Researchers call it the paradox of choice, which applies to everything from the approximately 50,000 products lining the typical supermarket's shelves to a sea of plasma-screen TVs and fleets of SUVs.

Consumers say they want more choices, and many shoppers thrive on doing the research and making the buy. But when some shoppers face countless selections, they can become paralyzed. It's another example of having too much of a good thing, and therein lies the paradox. Manufacturers are providing more, but many people just can't make up their minds and sometimes walk away without making a purchase.

Making a choice means making a commitment, and many consumers are fearful that if they make the wrong one, they'll end up with a serious case of buyer's remorse. Tod Marks, a senior editor at Consumer Reports, calls this the "sweaty palm" syndrome, which is especially prevalent on high-dollar items.

"If you think about it, we're such an affluent country -- I mean, who needs 140 varieties of mustards and vast choices of salad dressings, ketchups and olive oils?" Marks aid. "We've all seen them in the store -- those people who stand slack-jawed in front of some product, staring off in disbelief.

"There is an absolute correlation between the number of choices we have and becoming paralyzed by making a decision," Marks said.

Marketing choice

Whether it's $5,000 or $5, inertia can set in.

Take a product seemingly as simple as an Oreo cookie -- two chocolate wafers with cream stuffing. But there are no fewer than 24 variations of Oreos, ranging from Double Stuff Peanut Butter Creme Oreo to Uh-Oh Oreos, where the wafers are vanilla and the stuffing is chocolate.

An experiment conducted in 2000 by Stanford University and Columbia University researchers drove home the paradox-of-choice point. A group of consumers was given coupons that could be used to buy one of six varieties of exotic jams. Another group was given coupons, but had 24 jams from which to choose. Thirty percent of those offered just six choices made a purchase, compared with only 3 percent of those who had 24 flavors to pick from.

Alexander Chernev, associate professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, said many firms that are developing products don't take into account how consumers make decisions.

"The basic premise is that more choice is always better, the more variety the better, but many companies aren't good at marketing choices," Chernev said.

But some are getting smarter about how they sell choices to potential customers and some, Chernev said, already do a good job.

Take Apple Computer and the ubiquitous iPod. There are three basic models, one that stores 240 songs, one that stores 1,000 songs and one that stores 15,000. Colors? Some choice, but not many. A typical consumer could probably pretty easily figure out if their lifestyle and love of music could be satisfied by an iPod in which they could download 240 songs, or if they really, really needed the one in which they could download 15,000 songs.

"If a company tries to figure out the logic of their variety, it's much easier for consumers to figure out which one fits into their life," Chernev said.

He said that when a customer opts to buy a competitor's product because it offers a more logical, easier way to navigate an array of choices, it's the manufacturer whose product that was rejected that loses out, not the retailer. But when the customer gives up and opts to make no decision at all, everyone loses out.

More help on the way

Many retailers are looking for ways to help consumers navigate the choices they have and work through the decision-making process.

For instance, several years ago, Best Buy Co. conducted a study to figure out ways to become more consumer-friendly.

One of the answers was personal shoppers.

More than 50 stores, though none yet in the Kansas City area, now have personal shoppers that receive training for all the products sold at Best Buy. A customer can call ahead, talk with the personal shopper, and discuss what products they're in the market for.

The personal shopper then asks questions to narrow choices. If a customer wants to buy a digital camera, they'll try to zero in on how it will be used. Is it primarily to take pictures at their kids' sporting events or is it for interior shots? Do they want one they can easily slip in their pocket or purse? When the customer visits the store, the personal shopper will have preselected an assortment of cameras.

Best Buy also has an online "shopping assistant" on its Web site. Again, if consumers are in the market for a digital camera, they can fill out a list of features they desire. With each feature, the choices are narrowed.

Still not sure about which one to pick? Head to www.epinions.com and check out the top 10 recommendations for digital cameras and read reviews from people who have already purchased and used the products.

Marks of Consumer Reports said he sometimes uses Epinions for his research.

"I look at the totality of the opinions -- I sort of approach it like I'm an Olympic judge for figure skating -- I throw out the best and the worst and focus on the middle," Marks said.

In fact, there are any number of similar tools to help consumers feel like they're making the right choice. If someone has planned a trip to Puerto Vallarta and is searching for a hotel, travel Web sites offer opinions and recommendations from other travelers.

TripAdvisor.com lists the most recommended hotels and resorts for hundreds of destinations and many reader opinions. In one case, typing in the name of a boutique hotel found six opinions. Five were extremely favorable. The sixth was negative. After reading the comments, it was clear this wasn't the type of property for the reviewer.

Other travel Web sites offer useful information for making decisions, including Expedia. If someone is getting ready to visit New York and needs to find a hotel, they can again fill out parameters and narrow their choices -- a strategy that experts say goes a long way in helping consumers make choices they'll feel good about.

Sleep on it

Northwestern's Chernev said that at the end of the day, the decision-making process for anything is a tradeoff.

"The tradeoff is, how do you manage the time and effort for each decision?" Chernev said. "Nobody ever teaches people how to make decisions, but once you learn to manage the tradeoff, that is figuring out what is important and what isn't important."

Research shows, he said, that when people find the first available option that meets their criteria and make that choice, "they're more satisfied with the outcome."

Experts suggest picking two or three reliable resources to do research, including ones like Consumer Reports. Then try to limit the time frame to a reasonable one for the type of product.

And sometimes, when in doubt, especially for big-ticket items, sleep on it.

A recent study from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands found that with more complex purchases, such as buying a car or a house, it's best to pull back for a day before pulling the trigger.

Reporting on the study, New Scientist magazine wrote: "Complex decisions are best left to your unconscious mind to work out." The study also noted that "overthinking a problem could lead to expensive mistakes."

Meanwhile, some consumer goods manufacturers are figuring out that more isn't always better. For example, Masterfoods USA recently announced it's pulling the plug on a number of items, including bite-size Popable Snickers.

Then there are retailers that narrow choices for their customers.

Many consumers have become loyal Costco shoppers because the company typically stocks one or two brands in a category, not five, 10 or 20.

"Costco really does reduce the level of complexity," said Marks. "The hand-holding and the thumb-sucking -- you don't have to do it because they've already made the choice for you."