I am working on a blog about what I would do if I were running Best Buy. One thing I am keying in on is they have an overwhelming number of choices but very little help to help normal people make sense of the clutter. Do we really need this many choices? No. More later. - Robert Scoble from email

The one on the left. No that one. No your left... Forget it... ;-) - Ken Stewart | ChangeForge

Good observations. I agree. Too many choices with very little help, and most of the help is no help at all! Of course, this was Circuit City's undoing -- firing all of the semi-competent staff to save a few bucks. How'd that work out for them? - Mickey Mellen

Even if you think we need that many choices they could have much better arrangement and signage to help you arrive at the right set for you. - Robert Scoble

Schwartz has a *great* book about this, Robert. Look for "The Paradox of Choice" on Amazon. It's influenced the way I look at most everything, from shopping experiences to UI design considerations. - teleken

When I worked retail people would hold off purchase decisions if they were confused. If I held them to only two to decide between they would buy faster. - Robert Scoble

Jon: exactly. No signage explaining the difference. - Robert Scoble

I agree. That's why I do most of my shopping online. There are more choices online, but I can easily filter out the things I don't want and narrow in on what I do. I walk into most stores and get completely overwhelmed. On a rare occasion, I'll do my research online and go buy the product in the store - doing no browsing, just buying. I hate the sensory overload in brick & mortar stores. - Jen (SquirrelGirl)

Completely agree Robert. I worked in retail for 7 years, and have seen the exact things you describe. I've often wondered about starting my own service as a shopping assistant for tech items. I've had the idea in my head for years since I left retail and just am having issues on how to make it work for me as a business. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

As Seth Godin would say, "It's broken...the system is broken". - Dana Fosburgh

How about some honest categorization? "Cheap but looks nice", "Looks plain but works", "Expensive but will last a while" and "Overpriced - stay away" - Adam Kinney

Hi Robert..I work in BD at Wize.com...This is exactly one of the problems we are hoping to solve...Wize is one of the first needs based product recommendation engine...Assuming you were interested in buying a TV for watching the super bowl, you'd get: http://tinyurl.com/wizesports - Himanshu Shah

Are you local Circuit City(ies) already empty? - Cole Orton

Frequently, companies swap "customer service" for selling/promotion. I once complained on Twitter about bad customer service at an (unnamed) wireless service, who then contacted me to try and remedy things (cool!). Their answer? They tried to upsell me on other products/services (uncool!). Throwing more stuff at customers doesn't help them. Instead, if they would just sell a few things and support them very well, they would succeed in spades. - Patrick Driscoll

Himanshu, that's a great service, but feels like it's lacking human interfaces. I routinely came across customers that gravitated to me because I KNEW what I was talking about and didn't try to push sales (which is why I ended up leaving the field, but that's for another time to explain). You can't trust 99% of the associates you see in stores today. I think it's a huge idea to have personal tech shopping assistants that can be hired to help you make a decision. Pairing with a web site would be perfect. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

I agree with the confusion that so many models brings to making a decision. Look at Woot.com - one item take it or not. Is there room in brick & mortar for a twist on that? Something like 5 choices, clearly segmented and with simple information at the target for that set. It can't be easy (read must cost a bunch) to keep so many models in stock. - Matt Penning

I'm nowhere near any of the Best Buy or Future Shop outlets, so I tend to do most of my shopping online. They usually have customer reviews listed online for each product, which is helpful and I try to find independent articles and critiques from various sources, of products I'm interested in. Even if I were near the actual stores and they had a lot of customer support staff, I think I'd still have a hard time trusting their opinion without doing my own research. But, I'm anal like that sometimes! :D - Charlie Flowers

Charlie, that's exactly how I do it. BUT, how many people have the time to do all that thorough research? - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

That's why companies like Costco do so well (that and lowering the bottom line, but that's something else all together). At one time, Costco only carries around 4,000 items in a warehouse (that's not that many-- that includes all groceries and staple goods like sodas, toilet paper, etc.) The fewer choices makes your decision process easier, and, it doesn't hurt that you also get a better price. :) - Melissa Daniels

Like if I wanted to find an item I might go to a Kiosk to search for an item. The results would tell me if the item was in stock in that store and where exactly to find it if it is. Something like that? - MarkCarras

agreed. take the apple approach with the simple low end/high end choices - Ryan

Minor technical suggestion: stop feeding HD televisions really crappy degraded signals through cheap splitters. Although, it does fascinate me how many people just wander up and "oooohhh" and "ahhhhhh" at grainy, muted images just because they're... SO BIG. - Anthony Citrano

@slayerboy: That's true it is time consuming. But you almost always get great products that way. :-) - Charlie Flowers

@slayerboy Thanks for the feedback! By aggregating review content from all across the web (from real users of the products), we're essentially ranking products from "experts" that have anecdotes to share about the product and how they've used it. I definitely see your point though.. - Himanshu Shah

The "two choices" approach seems to work well in many contexts. My graphic design mentor always told me to show the client only two choices. A wise friend who's a parent told me that you don't ask a kid if you want to go to bed, but rather "do you want to go to bed at X or Y?" - travelninja

Oh, and do you think this economic crisis will lessen the ridiculous amount of products to choose from? I keep wondering what impact this will have on the Long Tail phenomenon. - travelninja

Carolyn: if I were running Best Buy I would get rid of 30% of the choices. I think that is coming anyway. - Robert Scoble

do companies pay for shelf space to exist at Best Buy I wonder? It's possible? - Honor Gunday

Honor: not just possible I bet that is a huge reason why there are so many choices. - Robert Scoble

I can tell you from first hand experience that shelf position commands a higher royalty in the video games section. I worked on a game and our publisher could only get it on the bottom shelf. So we'd go into the Best Buy near our office every other day and move our game to the top. :o) - Paul Reynolds

It happens on every shelf of your grocery store. And separately, in their back rooms & warehouses. The Plan-o-gram for each section is ostensibly related to demand + new products. In reality, every inch, which shelf, where on the shelf, how many facings, next to what, are ALL paid for. I know 1st hand. - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

The Paradox of Choice is required viewing. http://video.google.com/videopl... Pretty famous 'Jam' study as well referenced here: http://www.apa.org/monitor... These have major applications to most websites and the Internet overall IMO. - AJ Kohn

Barry Schwartz has a balanced talk on choice that's relevent to this. http://bit.ly/uWF1 - Drew

Mind numbing choices are difficult and confusing... I like choice, but this is too much! - Susan Beebe

3 choices work. High end, low end, and the product in the middle that everyone buys. Bronze/Silver/Gold if you will. - Andrew Smith

Few choices makes it easy to feel satisfied you made a good choice, too many options leaves you feeling you may have not bought the best one. - Drew

Looks like a great place to use a TV-B-Gone. I sure love shutting off those magically addictive boxes. http://twitter.com/Deviant... - Pat Padawon