Give me less choice, please
How many times have you been in a retail store, overwhelmed by the sheer number of brands/products on offer, only to leave in frustration?
Increasingly, it seems, trusted editors who can curate choice products and/or services in a compelling way will win our harried attention.
This is bringing the “specialty” back into retail, driving a resurgence of passionate mom’n pops and leaving large, national, “big box” chains exposed.
Give me a small, local book shop, wine shop, cheese shop, bike shop or shoe shop offering earnest service, a sharp point of view and a crisp assortment over a big, national player, any day.
Here’s a quote on the subject from John Deighton, editor of the Journal of Consumer Research, from an article in today’s WSJ, ‘Borders Tries About-Face on Shelves’:
“People don’t want choice, they want what they want. And what they want is sometimes constructed for them in the store by the attractiveness of what’s on offer.”
There’s a book-seller in Berlin called Bildschone Bucher taking this approach to the extreme, and having success at it: Bildschone offers only 25 art book titles at any given time.
Assuming Bildschone refreshes the assortment monthly (do they?), sending a “this just in” email reminder to interested parties, I might pop by their shop every 30 days or so. If I lived in Berlin.
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