The conclusion from
the paper about choice overload in the wine market seems to indicate that choice
overload does not happen in the case of wine. I found that paper to be somewhat
narrow focused. What if the choice overload effect for wine was dependent on
the retail / sale channel?
As discussed in class
wine is different and far more complex compared to yoghurts or jam, however,
intuitively it does seem strange that there would be no choice overload
whatsoever. The paper focused on wine sold in specialized retail shops and it
seems that no choice overload happens there. I can agree with that from
personal experience. Every time I enter K&L, even if it is without the
objective of buying a bottle, I always end up buying something as there is such
a big selection that I always spot an interesting offering which sparks my
interest. In brief, a consumer that enters a wine shop is looking forward to a
broad selection and that actually increases his satisfaction of the purchase.
I’m not sure the same reasoning
is valid for other settings though. In supermarkets for example, consumers are
shopping for their groceries and they may want to buy a bottle of wine on the
side. If the selection is too big however, they might be “scared off” and feel
like they do not have time to properly asses a buying decision, as the main
reason they are at the shopping center is to buy groceries. In brief, a
consumer might be more frustrated with their wine choice, regardless of the
bottle, thus deciding not to buy.
For restaurants, the
previous posts and comments make a good point. In most cases it seems like there
is choice overload, unless a sommelier service is present (which I guess is the
point of having a 1000+ wine list) whose ultimate goal is to narrow down and
advise the selection for the customer.
One interesting
channel which I feel hasn’t been take in consideration enough in the choice
overload discussion is online sales. Here I would like to compare 2 different models.
The first is KLwines online, the online shop of the retailer I mentioned in
paragraph 2 which has more than 9900 wines in catalogue; the second is
sommly.io, a startup that imports Italian wines with 41 wines offered.
K&L has a very
easily searchable database with a lot of different tags per wine. The website is
set up in order to enable the user to narrow down his search, then browse the
selection. Without knowing what to look for, it is very easy for the user to
get lost in an endless loop of research / filtering / sorting. Even with some
criteria in mind, the offer is probably going to still wide, so deciding
factors tend to become the critic scores (which are showed quite plainly with
the wine’s price). As discussed in class previously, not everyone feels
satisfied when relating to critics’ scores.
Sommly instead has a
much newer looking UI, with the picture of the wine being the main object on
the screen. The search is not very refined, but given the small selection, it
is quick and easy to just browse all the catalogue. I feel like each time I go
on Sommly, I am much more tempted of buying a wine, as I can usually pinpoint
the bottle that seems more interesting among all those offered. I would be more
“satisfied” of my purchase decision in this case.
It would be
interesting to run experiments and have data regarding customer satisfaction
and buying decisions in settings with online choice overload.
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