Is Segmentation and Choice Making Us Depressed?

If there’s one thing the internet has done for us, is given us more options. No longer do we have to look through a phone book and call a dozen stores to find that one thing you are looking. Now, in a matter of seconds, you have dozen, if not hundreds or thousands, of choices at your disposal. I recall reading some time ago that Amazon sold over one thousand different kinds of toilet brushes. Overkill, don’t ya think?!

It makes sense to think that more options means there are more possibilities to reach perfect contentment, however, all these choices are actually making us unhappy, and in fact it makes us regret our decisions. So as a marketer, do you offer endless choice, or limit your offerings so as to not confuse the consumer? That is the million dollar question.

I personally understand this all too well. While some people strive to buy the very best, I strive to buy the very best AND at the cheapest price. At this point, comparison shopping has become a sport, taking up a lot of my time and ultimately on some occasions, I give up and just buy something. Researching all my options is nearly impossible with all the choices that are out there! Here’s a great article that talks about some of the drawbacks to having too much choice.

In doing research for this blog, I came across the term Analysis Paralysis, which is the other result from having too much choice. Basically, we have so much choice that the fear of making the wrong decision actually leads us to not act. I can personally attest that some of my biggest moments of procrastination have been due to Analysis Paralysis. Recently, when choosing a day care for my youngest child I had such an abundance of choices that I didn’t know what to do, so instead I procrastinated until some of the schools filled up, leaving me with less choice and making the decision easier to make.

Segmentation has done a great job of providing the consumer with more choices. But it does come at a potential price. It’s important as marketers to research, listen to the consumer, and survey the landscape in order not to increase the case of decision fatigue in our consumers.