Last time we sold these Keysmart doohikies we only offered 2 options: metal or plastic. Today we’re including a fancy one with built-in Tile tracking, bringing the number of options to 3. And for whatever reason, 3 options feels better.
Have you noticed how often you’re given 3 options when shopping? That includes the New York Times:
Netflix:
(These screenshots are being taken from Japan, thus the Yen pricing)
And pagan-worship-supplies subscription service Box of Shadows:
Websites often use the 3 pricing tiers as a kind of psychological trick to make you choose the middle tier. With this “Goldilocks” strategy, the idea is that you (the customer) will consider the cheapest option too basic, the most expensive option too extravagant, and the middle option “just right.”
We’re not trying to do that. In fact, we’re pretty agnostic about which Keysmart you choose. The fancy one is neat, but only if you’ll use the tracking functionality (and don’t already have a Tile). And the plastic ones work fine if you’re of a utilitarian bent.
However, it will be interesting to see whether offering 3 options will drive more relative sales of the mid-priced option. The behavioral economist Dan Ariely ran an experiment that found that customers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by how many options they can choose from, rather than the true “value” of the individual options. For example, if people have the choice between an economy car, a midsize car, and a luxury car, most will pick the midsize car. But if they’re given a choice between the economy car and the midsize car, they’ll choose the economy car.
Likewise, we may see that more people choose the middle-tier, metal Keysmarts today than the last time we sold them because it has the perception of being “just right" simply because it’s in the middle.
Or maybe our customers are smarter than those schmoes and won’t have their decisions swayed by silly human behavioral quirks. We’ll see …
