The Service of Choice

Helping your customers move from comparison to conviction...

Nearly thirty years ago, Sheena Iyengar, a curious Stanford graduate student, found herself regularly wandering through Draeger's grocery store in Menlo Park. Draeger’s wasn't just any grocery store—it was a spectacle, a gourmet wonderland where tourists would flock to marvel at shelves brimming with exotic foods, rare wines, and specialty items so unique they bordered on the mythical. The store boasted 75 different kinds of olive oil, including one so rare it was kept in a locked case, pressed from olives of a 1,000-year-old tree.

As Iyengar observed busloads of tourists pour into the store, something nagged at her. Why did so few of these people leave with a purchase? Why did she often walk out empty-handed despite being dazzled by the selection? The more she thought about it, the more the question gnawed at her: Was the vast selection of specialty products truly as effective as it seemed? When she asked the store manager, he merely shrugged, gesturing toward the bustling crowds. Surely, he implied, the throngs of visitors were proof enough of success.

But Iyengar, ever the social psychologist, wasn’t satisfied with just the surface answer. She decided to test her hypothesis in a way only a psychologist would—with jam. Draeger’s, true to form, had an overwhelming 348 different kinds of jam. Together with the store manager, Iyengar set up a tasting booth at the entrance, switching between offering 6 varieties of jam and a far more daunting 24 varieties. The goal? To uncover how choice affects consumer behavior.

The results were revealing. When 24 jars were on display, 60% of shoppers stopped to sample, entranced by the abundance. But when just 6 varieties were offered, only 40% paused for a taste. On the surface, it seemed that more choice was better—more engaging. But the real question was, who would buy?

Here’s where it gets interesting. When faced with 24 options, just 3% of those who sampled ended up buying a jar. But when only 6 options were on offer, a remarkable 30% of samplers made a purchase. In other words, customers were more than six times more likely to buy when they encountered fewer options.

One obvious outcome of Iyengar’s research was that less can, in fact, be more. Most people can’t actually meaningfully distinguish between 348 different kinds of jam or, for that matter, thousands of different varieties of hybridized corn seed. But I think it also speaks to an even more fundamental question at the core of our daily commercial activities:

“Is the primary mission of sales and marketing to capture attention, or is it our job to help our customers to choose?”