Consumers overwhelmed by decisions

Probably my favourite restaurant in the world sits on the banks of the Nile in Egypt. Called the Tutankhamun, it has a picture-postcard setting, a wonderful owner - Mahmoud - and great food.

What really sets it apart for me, however, is the fact that it doesn't have a menu. You arrive, you sit down, Mahmoud bustles over and tells you what you're going to eat. No questions.

I often think of the Tutankhamun when I eat out, an experience that invariably involves at least 20 minutes of intense soul-searching as you wade through a menu the size of a small novella. We seem to have reached a tipping point in Western civilisation where we are faced with such a bewildering array of options and alternatives that choice has become more of a hindrance than a boon.

"We've always taken it for granted that since choice is essential to human wellbeing, then the more choice we have the better off we are," says Professor Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: When More is Less.

"It is only in the last decade that people have started to study the issue and realised that there comes a point where adding options seems to produce paralysis and confusion rather than liberation and satisfaction."

Every aspect of our contemporary consumer culture - whether it be shopping for televisions, clothes or energy suppliers - now brings with it such a deluge of choices that it renders the experience overwhelming. Twenty years ago, if you wanted a new pair of running shoes, you'd wander into a shop and browse a dozen or so options. Today, in stores such as King of Trainers in Oxford Street, London, that selection has ballooned to well over 500 separate makes of shoe, racked up around the walls like the fallout from an exploding prosthetic foot factory.

"There was just too much choice, so I ended up not making a decision," said 31-year-old teacher Nicole, as she emerged from the King of Trainers shop. "I knew what I wanted when I went in, but then there were so many different possibilities I got confused and gave up."

Nor is it just indecision that excessive choice can engender. "The fact that there is so much choice, and that the choices are so confusing, has been proven to have a negative effect on people's moods," says Schwartz. "Even when you've actually bought something there's still that lingering sense of worry and regret that maybe you didn't choose the right option."

Psychotherapist Liz Irvine goes even further. "There's a really depressive element in having too much choice," she argues. "I see it all the time in my patients. What lies at the heart of many people's problems is that mentally they cannot cope with the number of choices they are being asked to make in the modern world."

More and more people are making a conscious choice to opt out of making decisions.

Dr James Intriligator, an expert on consumer psychology at Bangor University, says, "Studies show that when people are overwhelmed with choice, they take refuge in simple behaviour.

"My sense is that something of a divide is opening up between those who love going through every possible variable on the Starbucks menu, and those who think, to hell with it, just give me a cup of coffee."

"It's a complicated picture," says Jenny Driscoll of Which? "But, in certain areas, people do seem to be choosing to avoid choice. With supermarkets, for instance, our research shows that 70 per cent of shoppers just want to get through the trip as quickly as possible, and they do that by going straight to the brands they know so as to scale down choice."

An increasing number of businesses seem to be waking up to this "we want less" dynamic. Stores such as Tesco Metro are in part a response to this desire for a more focussed, less complicated shopping environment, carrying about 10 per cent of the 30,000 products available in full-size supermarkets. An increasing number of restaurants are offering limited or set menus.

"The sense I get again and again," says Barry Schwartz, "is that people in business - whether it be selling flowers or appliances or clothing or food - all recognise this problem.

"They're trying to simplify, find ways to organise and display their products so that even if they offer a lot, customers don't actually feel they're being offered a lot."

- INDEPENDENT