#consumer choice

1,571 words, 8 minutes read time. The modern hardware market is a calculated trap for the man who values his independence. You walk into a store, lay down your cash, and leave believing you own the machine, but you are mistaken. The transaction is no longer a clean break between buyer and seller; it is an induction into a digital prison camp. Manufacturers have weaponized the fear of being…

E20 के आलोचक रविवार को दिल्ली के जंतर-मंतर पर धरना देने की योजना बना रहे हैं, जिसे आयोजक केंद्र की इथेनॉल-मिश्रण नीति के खिलाफ पहला सार्वजनिक विरोध प्रदर्शन बता रहे हैं। एक पेट्रोल पंप परिचारक एक वाहन में ईंधन भरने के लिए नोजल उठाता है। (एएफपी) राजनीतिक विश्लेषक तहसीन पूनावाला ने एक्स को यह घोषणा करने के लिए कहा कि प्रदर्शन सरकार के ई20 ईंधन रोलआउट को लक्षित करता है, प्रदर्शनकारियों की मांग है…

The North America Tetra Pak Carton Market is currently ripe with opportunity for brands that prioritize sustainable innovation and consumer-centric design. As the market matures, there is an increasing demand for personalized packaging solutions that offer unique branding potential alongside high-performance material properties. From eco-labeled cartons that highlight the renewable origin of the paperboard to specialized designs for premium niche beverages, the opportunities to capture market attention are growing. Retailers are also demanding packaging that maximizes shelf density and simplifies logistics, leading to a rise in space-efficient carton formats that optimize warehouse operations and transport costs. By focusing on these logistical and aesthetic advantages, manufacturers can build strong brand equity while contributing to the wider industry goal of lowering environmental impact through smarter, more efficient packaging systems that meet the needs of both the producer and the planet.

In an increasingly interconnected world, the allure of smart devices promises unparalleled convenience and efficiency. From refrigerators that compile grocery lists to thermostats that learn your preferences, the smart home revolution is in full swing. However, beneath the gleaming surface of innovation lies a critical, often overlooked, security and privacy conundrum: the pervasive and…

At the risk of sounding really old—I know, that may be a foregone conclusion already—it’s fun to slip into storytelling mode. And believe me, now that I’m into my 36th year at WT, I have plenty of them. Your job is to nudge me if I start to tell you the same story again down the road.

I remember my very first semester here in the Fall of 1989. I was teaching a Principles of Marketing class among others, and since we didn’t have the internet on campus, and certainly not online courses, this was a twice-weekly face-fo-face encounter.

And there was a young woman in that class who brought plenty of her own stories to each session. As much as my Midwest accent betrayed my origins, her thick eastern European accent suggested strongly she wasn’t at all even remotely from around here.

Turns out she and her family had recently immigrated to Amarillo from Poland, or as it was known when they were escaping it, the Polish People’s Republic. It was anything but a republic, because it was under the control of the USSR. Think rationing, shortages, and the usual ineptness associated with that regime.

In one particular class session we were discussing consumer choice. I had thrown out such lofty topics as product attributes, price, manufacturers, and the like, things we kind of take for granted. We know we can just go to any supermarket and enter a world bazaar of products. We are pretty accustomed to having choices.

But she wasn’t.

She related how people relied on the grapevine and scattered news alerts that bread was available at the local supermarket, which, based on her recollections, wasn’t all that super. Think empty shelves. And when they did have bread, there was one kind. Take it or leave it. One size fits all. If they ran out, oh well.

It was thus no surprise when she and her family froze in our supermarkets, because not only did we have bread all the time—well, aside from when they put the word “snow” in the weather forecast—we have 30 or more varieties. Cheap bread. Whole wheat bread. Rye bread. Fancy breads. You name it, we have bread. You might think we grow some wheat around here.

My student went on, one tale after another, of how their transition to the US, albeit one they wanted, was difficult if only because we have it so good here. I wisely put down my lecture notes and let her do the talking, because I couldn’t begin to teach as well as she was doing.

In contrast, we have grown numb to so much choice, and once we have determined “our brand,” we can boldly walk down the bread aisle and quickly cut through all the clutter, grabbing the one we always do.

Well, that is until they are out of it, or life throws you a curveball, like my wife and a recent diagnosis of being pre-diabetic. Another family member was just declared Type 1 diabetic. Both are having to make massive dietary changes, which essentially means reading every damn label and trying to cut out carbs. That’s no easy task in a country that grows so much wheat and corn. Most of our food is little carbohydrate bombs.

The same holds true when you are trying something new, like following a recipe for a new dish, and you are starting with a clean slate, no accumulated memory, little or no product knowledge. A person could spend an hour in the store trying to figure out which curry or pho noodles to buy.

It’s an interesting conundrum we have here, living in the land of abundance with more choices than we can begin to tally. Amazon alone has more than 12 million products. Enter a search query and wait to be overwhelmed. And yet we somehow manage to survive.

Sometimes, though, too much choice can be crippling, as I was trying to convey a few days ago when I said that “less is more.” At least sometimes it is, and only to a point. Grocery chains like Aldi and Trader Joe’s abide by this mantra, with only about 4000 items, compared to the 45,000 you will find at major chains.

There’s actually a line of academic inquiry of this phenomenon called the Paradox of Choice. As you can imagine, the conclusion is that having too many options can lead to decision fatigue, and even post-purchase regret. It’s a topic we will discuss again later in the course. It is also a topic that can be applied into other arenas, like the Mating Game. Think about all of the prospects for the partner of your dreams. Yikes! It is no wonder that dating can be exhausting. It’s kind of like shopping in the world’s largest supermarket.

Thankfully, when it comes to less complicated acquisitions—bread versus a life partner—we have developed a defense system, as I noted earlier. We can blur the background like on a Zoom call, and focus on the one thing we want. It’s just that it doesn’t always work like that.

I wonder whatever happened to that young woman. She’s got to be in her late-50s now, and no doubt long acclimated to the land of plenty. In her extreme state, though, as a newbie here, it was the perfect illustration for how too much choice can lead to headaches.

I am sure, though, that it was a hell of a lot better than standing in a queue in Krakow hoping there’s still a loaf of bread left when it’s my turn to get in.

Dr “I’ll Take Paradoxes For $1000, Alex” Gerlich

I currently have a stinking cold, which isn’t superbly great. However, the one upside is that taking things easier for a few days has given me time to think, leading to a revelation* that Goths (the aesthetic subculture not the Germanic tribal group) are the solution to the issues Google, Meta, and other internet-centric companies are facing with regulators challenging the design of their user…