Most of us are not, in the parlance of economic theory, “rational utility maximisers” but, in the words of Herbert Simon, are “satisficers”, opting for what is good and easy enough, rather than becoming confused to the point of inertia in front of huge choices of goods in the shops.
Tesco, the very large British grocery chain (in financial trouble through over-expansion – sounds like the EU) decided to improve its situation by scrapping 30,000 of the 90,000 products on its shelves. Smaller grocery chains, like Aldi and Lidl, only offer between 2,000 and 3,000 lines and are doing just fine. For instance, Tesco used to offer 28 tomato ketchup,s while in Aldi there is just one in one size. I can hear huge sighs of relief!
In addition, Tesco is experimenting with a system that makes it easier and quicker to shop for the ingredients for meals: Basmati rice next to Indian sauces, tinned tomatoes next to pasta.
The standard teaching is that choice is good for us, that it confers on us freedom, personal responsibility, self-determination, autonomy and lots of other things that don’t help when you’re standing before a towering aisle of water bottles, paralysed and increasingly dehydrated, unable to choose.
The reality is that less choice means less stress. It has also created a new problem: the escalation in expectations to a point that we all expect perfect products that we will never get, leaving the buyer disappointed . As they say: “The secret to happiness is low expectations.” In 2002 I wrote the following poem about choice, long before the business schools started to advocate smaller product ranges:
Choice
They think we’ll rejoice, offered infinite choice,
But in fact more is less; indecision means stress.
How did they ever think it was clever
To propose the adoption of every damned option
Under the sun, instead of just one?
Just take the car, where they’ve gone far too far.
Do I have to recap the ten types of hubcap
The number of doors, colored carpets on floors,
The bumpers, the hoods, powered windows, faux-woods?
One mentally cowers in the face of horse-powers,
Different colors and trims and personalized shims,
When on the highways the cars look alike.
Henry Ford, hurry back and offer just black!
Take the cereals on offer: a hundred they proffer,
And do so in aisles stretching out there for miles.
Vitamins added; beware the array
Or you’ll quickly be glutted in C, D and A.
If you read all the labels, ingredient tables,
I very much fear it would be a career.
Hi-tech sort of gear is a category where
They include lots of stuff that you don’t use enough,
Or remember it’s there, or particularly care.
The shops you buy through mostly haven’t a clue;
The instructions are vast, and a whole day has passed
Before you work out what the feature’s about.
And I’ll have a good bet that at once you’ll forget
What buttons to press, and you’ll just have to guess.
Oh, take me back home where the buffaloes roam,
Where you rock in your chair in fresh air with no care,
Where in the boondocks the shops have small stocks,
And you’re settled and done with a “choice” of just one;
And you buy your provisions with no endless decisions,
Just a simple invoice and no multiple choice.
So who’s going to tell the people who sell
That we’re doing just fine without over-design?
Who’s going to complain: “Keep it simple and plain”.
Let it do just one task, that’s all that we ask.”
I have just made a start: “Give us less a la carte!”
Come, you too can rejoice with more time and less choice.
(Aug 2002)