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Too Much Choice

  • January 24, 2014 at 2:47 am

    #1683042

    zerko (1/23/2014)

    Gary Varga (1/23/2014)

    OCTom (1/23/2014)

    ...

    As far as available choices... everyone has their limit as to when it becomes a problem. Personally, if a restaurant has five choices, I would likely complain that there isn't enough choice. But, if it has 20 choices, I may consider that too many and have a problem choosing.

    Tom

    As for restaurants, we have already made a selection when we choose the restaurant whether it be a culinary style (French, TexMex, Tapas etc.) or an eating style (fast food, sit down, take away etc.) so we have already made two choices at least even before seeing the menu.

    Some years back, my wife and I were holidaying "off-peak" in Bali - in a village that had more restaurants than tourists at that time of year. Each evening we would walk past the restaurants, read the menus, and chat with the other tourists doing the same thing. Some days we had already decided where we wanted to try that evening, other days just really hungry and headed into the first place that sounded (and looked) acceptable, but quite often we were the first customers into the place. Didn't take too long to notice that within a short space of time, the restaurant we had selected would have quite a number of other customers, while most of the others we could see nearby had none. After a fortnight of observations, we dubbed it "the Zerk Effect."

    We still notice this happening, to a lesser extent, when we hit the local "chinatown" restaurants today.

    The Zerk Effect - "When confronted with too many choices, most people will look around and see what everyone else is doing."

    ;-)You heard it here first.

    That is why restaurants place customers in the window first. I think it is because some people think that if someone else is eating there then it can't be too bad whereas an empty restaurant shrieks of something no one wants. I'm with you Zerko (not necessarily restaurant choice wise ;-)), make the choice and be brave!!!

    Gaz

    -- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!

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