StartupCafe

I have a brain and I like to think it’s well-developed. But then things like this happen: at lunch today I somehow upgraded my BBQ chicken wrap to the more expensive meal deal option which included the chips and drink I didn’t originally want…. why did I do that?

Understanding how we choose

When you give people different options and tell them to choose one, they tend to compare the benefits in order to work out the value of things first.  Most of us don’t know what we want unless we view it in some context; we rarely value things in absolute terms as it’s hard to make decisions in a vacuum. Furthermore, it’s harder to compare things that are dissimilar so, unsurprisingly, we prefer to compare items that are similar.

Businesses that are aware of this can exploit this tendency to influence what people buy.  They can do this by including decoy items to make one item (the one they’d like you to pick) look more attractive than another.  A well-known example that is often used to demonstrate this is The Economist’s subscription options:

(a) web only: $59

(b) print only: $125

(c) web & print: $125 (more…)

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