Too much choice?

The overwhelming reality of our online age is that EVERYTHING can be available. Online retailers offer variety on a scale unimaginable even a decade ago. Millions of products in every possible variant and combination. But does anyone need this much choice? Can we handle it?

This is the question you see. It's being raised more and more these day as the online cornucopia expands. The conventional view is that more online choice is better, because it acknowledges that people are different and allows them to find what's right for them. 

Barry Schwartz argued that too much choice is not just confusing, it's downright oppressive. He cited a now-famous study of consumer behaviour in a supermarket The details from the paper: 

"Why Choice is Demotivating," Customers tasted a selection of Jam; One from a small selection six- Another from a selection of twenty four- Customers choosing from the selection of six - 30% actually bought the product and from the selection of twenty four - only 3% paid for it.

Customers get oppressed and confused sometimes with too much choice. As the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.

Despite the detriments associated with choice overload, consumers want choice and they want a lot of it. The benefits that stem from choice,however, come not from the options themselves, but rather from the process of choosing. By allowing choosers to perceive themselves as volitional agents having successfully constructed their preferenceand ultimate selection outcomes during the choosing task, the importance of choice is reinstated. 

Amazon sell Jam. They sell twelve hundred kinds of jam thanks to it marketplace partnerships with a host of small speciality food merchants. In a bricks-and-mortar store, products sit on the shelf where they've been placed. If a consumer doesn't know what he or she wants, the only guide is whatever marketing material may be printed on the package, and the rough assumption that the product offered in the greatest volume is probably the most popular.