Back at the beginning of this blog’s existence I wrote some about Barry Schwarz’s book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. Recently I’ve thought that maybe he should have written a bit more about when more is less. He does devote some space to the subject of how meaningless some of our choices turn out to be, how they are not really different from each other. In those sorts of cases he advises that you spend as much time as the thing’s importance merits (usually not much), pick something, and stick to it. But sometimes you can’t because there are no options that are remotely like what you want. This really came home to me in two cases recently.
In one case, I was at a grocery store near work, looking for pita crisps to eat with lentil dip. This store has about a third of one side of an aisle devoted to crackers, but the vast majority of these crackers, probably 2/3 of the total, are either Wheat Thins or Triscuits. There are also smaller satellite brands like Cheez-Its and Ritz and a small section of more gourmet brands like Kashi, Stoned Wheat Thins (not at all like normal Wheat Thins; also, not drugged), Carr’s water crackers, and other oddities. However, none of the oddities includes pita or bagel crisps. There really is very little variety in the offerings unless what you want in variety is endless types of Wheat Thins and Triscuits. Low Sodium, Low Fat, Herb, Parmesan…any flavor and variant you want, but they’re all hard, square, plain or flavored small crackers. Where is the actual variety, the different kinds of crackers? Confined to a tiny portion of the section, and not even including anything other than standard crackers. I wandered through the store looking to see if they had hidden them somewhere else. No luck.
In the second case we were at Target looking for straps that go on the back of your sunglasses and keep them from falling off. Despite offering three racks of sunglasses and a rack of reading glasses, Target does not stock these things. At all. Not in jewelry & accessories, not in pharmacy, and not in sports. I went all over the store looking for this very simple thing which would take up hardly a foot counter space next to the sunglasses if they would just freaking buy some and put them there. There are three racks of sunglasses that all look basically identical and block 99-100% of UV light. Do we need three racks of sunglasses, or could we maybe add one rack of glasses straps? Why not? Target has practically everything except fresh food and extremely large specialty items. Glasses straps do not fall into either category; they should stock them and offer customers one more actual choice, instead of three dozen more identical sunglasses.
As it turns out, if you want glasses straps for kayaking, you should go to the kayak place and buy them there. And I guess if I want pita crisps I have to go to the giant new Safeway, or buy pita at TJs and make my own! It’s not that there aren’t options, but there sure is poor offering of true options at many large stores.