Apparently for Coca-Cola, it's about 400 different types of drinks.
That's why the beverage company recently decided to discontinue half of them, shedding brands like Tab, Zico coconut water, Diet Coke Feisty Cherry and Odwalla juices but still leaving about 200 others to choose from.
It's a move that other businesses are making as well, reducing the variety of offerings from mayonnaise to cereals to cars and instead focusing on what they think will sell best.
Stew Leonard’s, a supermarket chain that operates stores in
“The consumer is not going to know the difference,”
Just a year ago, Kohl's store in
Under its new CEO
“We would go out, and we would buy a lot of goods and it would come in 12, 14 months later, and it didn’t perform very well,” Kingsbury told analysts in a call in November. “We're going to be using the marketplace, so that we can react to the business quickly, getting into trends.”
Some customers like the changes so far.
“It’s pretty organized,” said
Even in the auto world, shoppers are finding fewer choices. Both
That's a reversal from a few years ago when there was an explosion of choices, encouraged in part by online shopping that paid no mind to space constraints. But that didn't always lead to sales so companies started pruning selections a year or two before the pandemic.
During the pandemic, the pruning only accelerated, with companies focusing on necessities as they wrestled with supply chain clogs. But even after the pandemic, when goods began moving freely again, many businesses decided less was better and justified the limited selection by asserting shoppers don't want so much choice. It's also more profitable for companies because they're not carrying over as many leftovers that need to be discounted.
Overall, new items accounted for about 2% of products in stores in 2023 across categories such as beauty, footwear, technology and toys, down from 5% of items in 2019, says market-research firm Circana.
Eric O’Toole, president of Edgewell’s
“We avoid jumping on fads, as the supply chain and retailer costs required to support getting to shelf typically don’t generate a return in the end," O'Toole said. "A tighter, more curated portfolio supports healthy profit management. ”
Many think they're also doing shoppers a favor, with studies showing that fewer choices, not lots of variety, actually encourage shoppers to buy more.
In 2000, psychologists Sheena Lyengar and
“Retailers are recognizing that they have to be respectful of shoppers' time,” said
Still, retailers can't just slash products willy-nilly, said
“You want to make these cuts so they’re not even aware of it, and you want the store to still look full," Berliner said. “If you do it too much, you might scare some away."
Berliner also believes reducing variety may also hurt smaller brands who relied on retailers to offer different products — and will send shoppers like
The 48-year-old communications consultant from
“I really don’t love the idea of a retailer telling me what I should and should not be interested in,” Friedland said. “I like variety. I like specific brands.”
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Associated Press Business Writers
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