Carol Moser
Chanda Phelan
Paul Resnick
ABSTRACT
E-commerce designers must decide how many products to display at one time. Choice overload research has demonstrated the surprising finding that more choice is not necessarily better?selecting from larger choice sets can be more cognitively demanding and can result in lower levels of choice satisfaction. This research tests the choice overload effect in an e-commerce context and explores how the choice overload effect is influenced by an individual's tendency to maximize or satisfice decisions. We conducted an online experiment with 611 participants randomly assigned to select a gourmet chocolate bar from either 12, 24, 40, 50, 60, or 72 different options. Consistent with prior work, we find that maximizers are less satisfied with their product choice than satisficers. However, using Bayesian analysis, we find that it's unlikely that choice set size affects choice satisfaction by much, if at all. We discuss why the decision-making process may be different in e-commerce contexts than the physical settings used in previous choice overload experiments.
Supplemental Material
Available for Download
- Bharath Arunachalam, Shida R. Henneberry, Jayson L. Lusk, and F. Bailey Norwood. 2009. An Empirical Investigation into the Excessive-Choice Effect. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91, 3: 810--825.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Dirk Bollen, Bart P. Knijnenburg, Martijn C. Willemsen, and Mark Graus. 2010. Understanding Choice Overload in Recommender Systems. In Proceedings of the Fourth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys '10), 63--70. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Eric Boyd and Kenneth D. Bahn. 2009. When Do Large Product Assortments Benefit Consumers? An Information-Processing Perspective. Journal of Retailing 85, 3: 288--297.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Shun Cai, Yunjie Xu, and Jie Yu. 2008. The Effects of Web Site Aesthetics and Shopping Task on Consumer Online Purchasing Behavior. In CHI '08 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '08), 3477--3482. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Alexander Chernev. 2011. Product Assortment and Consumer Choice: An Interdisciplinary Review. Foundations and Trends in Marketing 6, 1: 1--61.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Alexander Chernev. 2011. Product Assortment and Consumer Choice: An Interdisciplinary Review. Foundations and Trends® in Marketing 6, 1: 1--61.Google Scholar
- Alexander Chernev, Böckenholt, and Goodman. 2014. Choice overload: A conceptual review and metaanalysis. Journal of Consumer Psychology.Google Scholar
- Pawitra Chiravirakul and Stephen J. Payne. 2014. Choice Overload in Search Engine Use? In Proceedings of the 32Nd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '14), 1285--1294. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jonathan D. D'Angelo and Catalina L. Toma. 2016. There Are Plenty of Fish in the Sea: The Effects of Choice Overload and Reversibility on Online Daters' Satisfaction With Selected Partners. Media Psychology: 1--27.Google Scholar
- Ilan Dar-Nimrod, Catherine D. Rawn, Darrin R. Lehman, and Barry Schwartz. 2009. The Maximization Paradox: The costs of seeking alternatives. Personality and Individual Differences 46, 5--6: 631--635.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Kristin Diehl and Cait Poynor. 2010. Great Expectations?! Assortment Size, Expectations, and Satisfaction. Journal of Marketing Research 47, 2: 312--322.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Zoltan Dienes. 2011. Bayesian Versus Orthodox Statistics: Which Side Are You On? Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, 3: 274--290.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Pierre Dragicevic. 2016. Fair Statistical Communication in HCI. In Modern Statistical Methods for HCI, Judy Robertson and Maurits Kaptein (eds.). Springer International Publishing, 291--330. Retrieved September 2, 2016 from http://link.springer.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/chapter/1 0.1007/978--3--319--26633--6_13Google ScholarCross Ref
- C.R. Gallistel. 2009. The importance of proving the null. Psychological Review 116, 2: 439--453.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Anthony Griffin and Dennis Viehland. 2012. Demographic Factors in Assessing Perceived Risk in Online Shopping. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Electronic Commerce (ICEC '11), 9:1--9:6. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gerald Häubl and Pablo Figueroa. 2002. Ineractive 3D Presentations and Buyer Behavior. In CHI '02 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '02), 744--745. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Graeme A. Haynes. 2009. Testing the boundaries of the choice overload phenomenon: The effect of number of options and time pressure on decision difficulty and satisfaction. Psychology and Marketing 26, 3: 204--212.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Rink Hoekstra, Richard D. Morey, Jeffrey N. Rouder, and Eric-Jan Wagenmakers. 2014. Robust misinterpretation of confidence intervals. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 21, 5: 1157--1164.Google ScholarCross Ref
- George S. Howard, Scott E. Maxwell, and Kevin J. Fleming. 2000. The proof of the pudding: An illustration of the relative strengths of null hypothesis, meta-analysis, and Bayesian analysis. Psychological Methods 5, 3: 315--332.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jessica Hullman, Paul Resnick, and Eytan Adar. 2015. Hypothetical Outcome Plots Outperform Error Bars and Violin Plots for Inferences about Reliability of Variable Ordering. PloS one 10, 11: e0142444.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Iyengar and Mark R. Lepper. 2000. When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, 6: 995--1006.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Sheena S. Iyengar, Rachael E. Wells, and Barry Schwartz. 2006. Doing Better but Feeling Worse: Looking for the "Best" Job Undermines Satisfaction. Psychological Science 17, 2: 143--150.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Eric J. Johnson, Suzanne B. Shu, Benedict G. C. Dellaert, et al. 2012. Beyond nudges: Tools of a choice architecture. Marketing Letters 23, 2: 487--504.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Matthew Kay, Gregory L. Nelson, and Eric B. Hekler. 2016. Researcher-Centered Design of Statistics: Why Bayesian Statistics Better Fit the Culture and Incentives of HCI. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '16), 4521--4532. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Scott Kessler. 2014. Industry Surveys, Computers: Consumer Services & the Internet. S&P Capital IQ.Google Scholar
- John K. Kruschke. 2010. Bayesian data analysis. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 1, 5: 658--676.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Khai Sheang Lee and Soo Jiuan Tan. 2003. E-retailing versus physical retailing: A theoretical model and empirical test of consumer choice. Journal of Business Research 56, 11: 877--885.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Junzhao Ma. 2016. Does Greater Online Assortment Pay? An Empirical Study Using Matched Online and Catalog Shoppers. Journal of Retailing.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Richard McElreath. 2012. Statistical rethinking R package. R package version 1.Google Scholar
- Richard McElreath. 2016. Statistical Rethinking: A Bayesian Course with Examples in R and Stan. CRC Press.Google Scholar
- Shailey Minocha, Marian Petre, Ekaterini Tzanidou, et al. 2006. Evaluating e-Commerce Environments: Approaches to Cross-disciplinary Investigation. In CHI '06 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '06), 1121--1126. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Anthony D. Miyazaki and Ana Fernandez. 2001. Consumer Perceptions of Privacy and Security Risks for Online Shopping. Journal of Consumer Affairs 35, 1: 27--44.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Antti Oulasvirta, Janne P. Hukkinen, and Barry Schwartz. 2009. When More is Less: The Paradox of Choice in Search Engine Use. In Proceedings of the 32Nd International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR '09), 516--523. Google ScholarDigital Library
- PWC. 2015. Total Retail 2015: Retailers and the Age of Disruption. PricewaterhouseCoopers.Google Scholar
- Elena Reutskaja and Robin M. Hogarth. 2009. Satisfaction in choice as a function of the number of alternatives: When "goods satiate." Psychology and Marketing 26, 3: 197--203.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jens Riegelsberger and M. Angela Sasse. 2002. Face It - Photos Don't Make a Web Site Trustworthy. In CHI '02 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '02), 742--743. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jens Riegelsberger, M. Angela Sasse, and John D. McCarthy. 2003. Shiny Happy People Building Trust?: Photos on e-Commerce Websites and Consumer Trust. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '03), 121--128. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Benjamin Scheibehenne, Rainer Greifeneder, and Peter M. Todd. 2009. What moderates the too-muchchoice effect? Psychology and Marketing 26, 3: 229-- 253.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Benjamin Scheibehenne, Rainer Greifeneder, and Peter M. Todd. 2010. Can There Ever Be Too Many Options? A Meta-Analytic Review of Choice Overload. Journal of Consumer Research 37, 3: 409-- 425.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Barry Schwartz. 2004. The paradox of choice: why more is less. ECCO, New York.Google Scholar
- Barry Schwartz, Andrew Ward, John Monterosso, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Katherine White, and Darrin R. Lehman. 2002. Maximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83, 5: 1178--1197.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Barry Schwartz, Andrew Ward, John Monterosso, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Katherine White, and Darrin R. Lehman. 2002. Maximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83, 5: 1178--1197.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Avni M. Shah and George Wolford. 2007. Buying Behavior as a Function of Parametric Variation of Number of Choices. Psychological Science 18, 5: 369-- 370.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Herbert A. Simon. 1996. The Sciences of the Artificial. MIT Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Statista. 2015. E-commerce in the United States. Statista Dossier. Retrieved from http://www.statista.com/study/28028/e-commerce-inthe-united-states-statista-dossier/Google Scholar
- Ulrike Steinbrück, Heike Schaumburg, Sabrina Duda, and Thomas Krüger. 2002. A Picture Says More Than a Thousand Words: Photographs As Trust Builders in e-Commerce Websites. In CHI '02 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '02), 748--749. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Vertical Web Media LLC. 2015. Top 500 Guide. Internet Retailer.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- No Such Thing as Too Much Chocolate: Evidence Against Choice Overload in E-Commerce
Recommendations
The paradoxical nature of electronic decision aids on comparison-shopping: the experiments and analysis
Consumers who use electronic decision aids such as comparison-shopping agents may be overwhelmed by the amount of choice information available to them, leading to an inability to choose or dissatisfaction with the ultimate choice, a state of "choice ...
Too much choice: end-user privacy decisions in the context of choice proliferation
SOUPS '14: Proceedings of the Tenth USENIX Conference on Usable Privacy and SecurityChoice proliferation, a research stream in psychology, studies adverse effects of human decision-making as the number of options to choose from increases. We test if these effects can be elicited in a privacy context. Decision field theory suggests two ...
Too much of a good thing: The impact of product variety on operations and sales performance
AbstractWe examine the impact of product variety decisions on an operational measure – unit fill rate – and on sales performance. Results are estimated using weekly data over three years from 108 distribution centers of a major soft drink bottler. Our ...
Comments