60,000 choices – overwhelming An average supermarket has 60,000 products or SKUs (stock keeping units). Larger supermarkets have many more than this. Of course, consumers do not choose between all of these products on a day to day basis. However, these numbers serve to highlight the vast choice available to consumers in 2020. In her […]

60,000 choices – overwhelming An average supermarket has 60,000 products or SKUs (stock keeping units). Larger supermarkets have many more than this. Of course, consumers do not choose between all of these products on a day to day basis. However, these numbers serve to highlight the vast choice available to consumers in 2020. In her famous TED talk, Palo Alto discussed a supermarket with 348 varieties of jam – another overwhelming number. It must be stressful for some customers to make a choice. Indeed, research has demonstrated that when there were six varieties of jam on offer – the number of people likely to buy was six times higher than when 24 varieties of jam were offered.   The fact is, decisions create uncertainty and choices are often harder for consumers to make than marketers realise. Consider your response to a menu in a Chinese restaurant with 120 items on it…