The paradox of choice is a phenomenon in which a large number of options does not increase satisfaction or sales, but leads to the decision being postponed. Faced with ten nearly identical variants, the customer cannot assess the differences, fears making the wrong choice, and leaves. It shows up in pricing pages with a large number of packages, in categories with dozens of similar products, and on pages with multiple competing calls to action. The solution is not always to narrow the range, but to organise it: grouping by use case, clearly naming the differences, a recommended choice for the typical customer, and the option to compare variants side by side. For services, three packages instead of five tend to work well. This is easy to verify – by comparing the conversion rate before and after the change.
See also: Comparison table, Cognitive load, Price anchor.
