July 12, 2005

Too Many Choices...

Fresh Fruit Stand near Garfield Arkansas, Below the check out area of the Walmart Super Center in Jane, MO our closest market to our home.


Woody and I are amazed at all of the construction and homes for sale in this area. I am constantly asking...

"Woody, did we pick the right house...? After all we only looked at 250 or so, there are over a thousand in this area in our price range... do you suppose we should have looked at a few more?

As I struggle with my own doubts, I go back to this... There are way too many choices to make about everything.

I started to write this post two weeks ago, and the choices that are before us grow and grow as the moments tic by... I was sitting in the Mc Donald County Wal-mart, getting my eyes checked, and Woody's too. For two people who have significant risks...(Woody, family history of Glaucoma, diabetes and heart desiese, me my Mom had had cataracts in both eyes, with subsequent retinal detachment and cronic eye issues, diabetes, obeseity...me with massive cortosteroid use nearly 10 years ago) we heard the words...

"Lovely, perfect eyes"

"Clean, textbook healthy...Hoku, your vision is improving!, have you considered lasik?"

I had five choices in how I could manage my eyes with glasses, which I wore in Hawaii due to humidity and mold issues...or go back to contacts... I had eight choices to make a correction and skip the glasses which I did and I am back to contacts...I feel it really helps my looks and my vision gets a better correction...

But back to topic.



When we left the mainland this "Super Center" concept was being implemented, Big Box reigns and has for years...The corner hardware store, bakerey and clothing boutique are fading in the face of the mall. and I do think that we all lament that.

I know I do. There are too many choices in every area. One of the things that God has delivered me from is the curse of not being able to make a decision. I know now that this "Choice-a-phobia" is a control issue and the world isnt going to end if you screw up.

Yet, like Bill Newcott in this article humourously called Eenie, Meenie, Miniee NO! he bares his soul and I can totally relate, I post it here...


Eenie, Meenie, Minie … Noooo!
Confessions of a Choice-aphobe


By William Newcott

April 2005


When it comes to life’s hard choices, I freeze up at "paper or plastic?"

So now I’m at the supermarket checkout breaking into a mental sweat. Milk: plastic. Eggs: paper. Frozen lasagna: paper. No, plastic. Box of plastic bags … God help me.

It’s just one example of our many so-called choices that are really not choices at all—but merely selections among many of the same thing. Yet I feel compelled to reason out all the possible permutations.

For instance, I’m convinced that Starbucks has been installing overstuffed furniture to pave the way for on-site psychiatrists who will help work through your deep-seated indecision over whether that venti skim latte extra-hot should come with or without foam. Yes, it’s all coffee. But in fact, the smaller the sliver of difference among the choices, the more agonizing the decision.

How many variations of Coke will they sell you now? I found 11. Staring down the soft drink aisle, I get a kind of horizontal vertigo that only a Coca-Cola light with lemon can relieve. Or is it Caffeine Free Coke II? I’m dizzy again.

Remember when people complained they had 65 cable channels and nothing to watch? Now they’ve got 150 channels and nothing to watch. In 10 more years, someone will tell me, "I’ve got 15,000 channels on my satellite, and all I get is Sea Hunt." And I’ll think, "Well, is that Sea Hunt before Lloyd Bridges started diving with two tanks, or after?"

My friend Meg tells me there are no fewer than seven daytime court shows on TV, ranging from the venerable Judge Judy to Texas’ own Judge Larry Joe Doherty. Now, this may tell us more about Meg than it does about TV, but even she will admit they are all the same show.

Do you want a seat in the front, middle or back of the plane? Will I get there any quicker? Am I watching CSI in Miami, New York or Vegas? Does the dead body care? Is Paris Hilton the smart one, or is it Nicole Richie? And in what universe does that question have an answer?

Wait, wait, I’ve got it. Paper bags inside plastic bags. Whew.


Its true. I have only had TV since we have been on the journey, and I have never had cable, how in the world do you decide what to watch? Which news show? They all report them same thing? Oh that was the post a few days ago...

I remember the first time Woody and I went into the Walmart we shop at. I think we were a media moment. I know we stood there with our mouths open agast at the size and the scope of the store. This wasnt a warehouse store, this was a market that has become a behemouth, with 25 choices of dill pickles in specially designed packaging... Full service everything, and frankly I dont see how any retail business can compeate with this in our area...

I know that this merchendising mania, a cost cutting machine of a store that did more damage to my business in Hawaii than any other brick and mortar store (I really think that my biggest competition was the Internet and QVC)But untill this went in there was no serious grocery store within 10 miles on the Arkansas side, and as far as I can tell, it is the only full service market for a radious of 20 miles. (Dont ask me how I know, I found this out recently and that is another post altogether!)

Like our Wal mart in Hawaii that grossed 200,000 a day, this place has got to be doing 10 times this amount of business, and Im told that its busy 24/7... I know that this is not good for the economy in the long run, but I cant deny how having this low cost place to buy food and clothing (we have worn the clothes that we packed in March pretty much out and they are not sutible for employment. I bought 5 simple outfits suitable for the office in my size (BIG) for 125.00. They may not last long but will be enough till I get unpacked in a few weeks.

I haven't seen designer labels in our Walmart but its comming according to this article from Slate. One of our neighbors saw designer shoes at a store in Wisconson. Watch out world...here it comes...

I think that the statements made in the next article that states that "consumers have too many choices and often dont make the "shopping decision" and dont buy..." are true... Barry Swartz writes in his article "Too Many Choices"

Too Many Choices
From cookies to cell phones, dog food to discount drug cards, are Americans finding that more is less?


By Barry Schwartz

April 2005


About 10 years ago, I went to the Gap to buy a pair of jeans. I tend to wear my jeans until they’re falling apart, so it had been a while since my last purchase. A nice young saleswoman greeted me.

"I want a pair of jeans—32-28," I said.

"Do you want them slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy or extra baggy?" she replied. "Do you want them stone-washed, acid-washed or distressed? Do you want them button-fly or zipper-fly? Faded or regular?"

I was stunned. I sputtered out something like, "I just want regular jeans. You know, the kind that used to be the only kind."

The trouble was that there was no such thing as "regular" jeans anymore. Besides, with all these options before me, I was no longer sure that I wanted "regular" jeans. Perhaps the easy fit or the relaxed fit would be more comfortable. So I decided to try them all.

The jeans I ended up with turned out just fine, but what occurred to me on that day is that buying a pair of pants should not be a daylong project.

By creating all these options, the industry undoubtedly had done a favor for customers with varied tastes and body types. However, it had also created a new problem. In the past a buyer like me might have had to settle for an imperfect fit, but at least purchasing jeans was a five-minute affair. Now it had become a complex decision in which I was forced to invest time, energy and no small amount of self-doubt, anxiety and dread over the ordeal.

It’s not just jeans. Eighty-five types of crackers. Two hundred eighty-five types of cookies. Eighty pain relievers. Thousands of mutual funds. Hundreds of cell phones, dozens of calling plans. So many TV shows that people tape the ones they don’t have time to watch—and never have time to watch the ones they tape. Wherever we turn, we face mind-boggling choices.

Choice is an especially burning issue now. The Medicare prescription drug plan passed in 2003 and the current proposal to privatize a portion of Social Security are both initiatives justified, in part, by celebrating the virtues of choice. Instead of imposing a government plan on everyone, let people choose; it’s bound to make everyone better off. Boomers like me embraced this logic, and in the ’60s we demanded freedom of choice in all aspects of our social and cultural lives. In the ’80s, President Reagan extended this thinking as he tried to reduce the role of government in various aspects of our lives, and let the market rather than the state provide for our individual needs.

The fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better. Too many options can produce paralysis, not liberation.
The upside of having all these choices is obvious: Choice equals freedom, and freedom is among America’s most dearly held values. Economists tell us there can never be too much choice. If you don’t care about variety in cell phones, you can always just ignore it. But if you do care, abundant choice means that you ought to be able to find the phone that is just right for you.

Compelling as this may sound, however, there’s growing evidence that this logic is flawed. For many of us, increased choice means decreased satisfaction. The fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better. There’s a cost: Too many options can produce paralysis, not liberation. Studies show that:

As a store increases the varieties of jams or chocolates on its shelves, shoppers are more likely to leave without buying either product.
As the number of mutual funds in a 401(k) plan offered to employees goes up, the likelihood that they will choose a fund—any fund—goes down. For every 10 funds added to the list of options, the rate of participation drops 2 percent—even though many employees may be passing up matching money from employers.
Patient satisfaction goes down when the choice of medical treatments goes up—people generally don’t want to make their own decisions. The disconnect between theory—what people think they want—and reality can be illustrated by a study of people who were asked if they would want to choose their own cancer treatment. Some 64 percent of people surveyed said that if they were to get cancer, they would want to choose their own treatment. However, only 12 percent of those who had cancer said the same thing.
Even though choice may enable people to improve their lives by some objective measure—quality of jam or rate of return on investment—it often makes them feel worse. This may help explain why there has been a 75 percent increase in Americans being treated for clinical depression over the last 25 years.

Why does more choice generate these paradoxical effects? For starters, people feel an enormous burden to get enough information to make a good decision. Who has the time to find the best digital camera, the best cell phone plan, the best 401(k), the best health insurance, the best school for the kids?

Even when the choice is relatively simple, getting the right information is not easy. We’re influenced by the way in which options are presented, or "framed." For example, we accept a "discount for paying cash" but reject a "surcharge for using credit cards," even though the two mean the same thing. We might spring for a "bargain" sweater that is marked down from $200 to $100 when normally we would never dream of spending so much for a sweater. We instantly turned against the inheritance tax when it was relabeled as a "death tax," even though most of us will not be leaving enough behind to be affected. Such instances of framing are pervasive, and they become harder to see through as choices become more complex.

The more choices we have, the more we seem to regret the decisions we make. Sheer abundance seems to raise our expectations. So, we wonder, did we get what we want? Could the alternatives have been better?

Those who suffer most are the "maximizers" among us—people whose goal in making decisions is to get "the best." At the opposite end of the scale are "satisficers," who seek only what is good enough. Maximizers must check out all the alternatives in order to feel they got the best. And in a world of 80 pain relievers and thousands of mutual funds, that’s just not possible. So maximizers often make a selection and end up miserable, convinced that if they had looked a little longer, they would have done better.

It is sometimes said that you can’t know how much is enough until you experience too much. Well, we may now be experiencing too much—too much "freedom" and too much choice brought to us by a heady mix of political and cultural ideology and material affluence.

Older people seem to have learned this lesson from life experience. They are less inclined to be maximizers, which may be one reason why they are in general happier than their children and grandchildren. Perhaps with age comes the wisdom of learning that "good enough" is good enough.

There’s another lesson that older people have learned: Limited options can be liberating, and we should value at least some constraints on our freedom of choice instead of rebelling against them. Having to wear a seat belt or never indulging in a second dessert means not having to settle the same issue again and again—and saving the time and energy needed to make intelligent choices when required.

Our children and grandchildren—full of doubt, stressed out and anxious in a world of unprecedented wealth and opportunity—could surely profit from the same lesson.

While it’s true that a life without any freedom of choice would not be worth living, more choice doesn’t necessarily mean greater happiness.

Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology at Swarthmore College,

We had may clients that came into our jewelry store feel the same way. The consumer wants choices but not too many... For me I want the unique, and the big box can rarely supply that.

Once we move into our house likely we wont have TV again. I am looking forward to having one excess means of plying me with chioce eliminated. The Internet, malls, paper catalogs and Big Box stores are enough shopping venues for me.

In the mean time...Im going back to Lowes to make sure I got the right bathroom fixtures... There are only 582 style choices...should take me all the blessed day!