More options = more sales, right?
Wrong. Dead wrong.
In fact, offering too many choices can completely kill your conversions—and there’s solid science to prove it.
Let’s talk about one of the most famous marketing psychology experiments ever conducted:
🧪 The Jam Study: A Lesson in Analysis Paralysis
In 2000, psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper conducted a now-legendary experiment at a high-end supermarket.
They set up a simple tasting booth featuring jams.
But they ran two versions of the booth:
- One offered 24 different flavors of jam
- The other offered just 6 flavors
Shoppers were invited to taste and—if they liked what they tried—buy a jar.
🤯 The Results?
- The booth with 24 jams drew more attention. More people stopped to try.
- But when it came to sales, it
Only 3% of people bought jam from the 24-flavor setup.
Meanwhile, the 6-flavor booth converted a whopping 30% of visitors into buyers.
That’s a 1000% increase in conversions—just by reducing the number of options.
Let that sink in:
Fewer choices led to 10x more sales.
🧠 Why This Happens: The Paralysis of Too Much Choice
Here’s what the researchers—and marketers—have learned:
- Too many choices create overwhelm.
When people face too many options, they freeze. It becomes stressful to pick the “right” one. - More options = more decision fatigue.
Even if we do make a choice, we’re less satisfied because we worry about the alternatives we didn’t pick. - Simple sells.
Narrowing the path helps people make faster, more confident decisions—and feel better about them.
🚫 What You Should Never Do:
❌ Don’t overwhelm your customer with an endless list of options, packages, or features.
❌ Don’t assume more choices = better user experience.
❌ Don’t make your customer do the work of figuring out what’s best for them.
✅ What You Should Do Instead:
✔️ Curate your offerings. Show only your best or most popular options.
✔️ Use filters or quizzes to help guide the choice if necessary.
✔️ Apply the “3-option rule”: Offer a low, medium, and premium package—nothing more.
✔️ Lead with recommendations: “Most popular,” “Best for beginners,” etc.
💬 Final Thought:
If your product page, pricing model, or landing page feels like a buffet with 50 dishes… it might be costing you conversions.
Less isn’t just more—it’s profitable.
So, before you add another feature, plan, or product variation, ask yourself:
“Am I helping the customer decide—or just making them hesitate?”
Sometimes the smartest thing you can do for your sales is to simplify.