[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How do you overcome decision paralysis when ...
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Ask HN: How do you overcome decision paralysis when shopping?
In my home country (not the US), shopping was simple: Just go to a
few stores and see what's available (they often carried similar
items). Then make a purchase and go home. In the US, however,
there aren't many shops where I live. Everyone I know buys things
online, but there are many e-commerce websites and each has its own
perks and quirks. Let's just consider Amazon. I fully experience
the paradox of choice whenever I search for something on Amazon,
because there are 100s or even 1000s of options that I don't know
which one to choose. I spend hours and hours trying to buy even the
simplest things (e.g., a butter dish, skillet, etc.) What are your
strategies to deal with this situation? Are there better search
engines than Amazon's builtin search that can help reduce the noise
when shopping?
Author : behnamoh
Score : 14 points
Date : 2022-12-22 20:18 UTC (2 hours ago)
| faebi wrote:
| Today it took me 2 hours in the pub to choose a dish, and then
| they told me it was sold out. I might have some of that decision
| paralysis.
| Snoozus wrote:
| Buying less stuff dramatically reduces the problem.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > What are your strategies to deal with this situation?
|
| "Free Returns"
|
| I always make sure an Amazon listing had that.[0] I never abuse
| it, but I just started operating under SOP that trying something
| out at home was part of the online shopping experience. Don't
| like it? Return it.
|
| [0] Only once did I have an issue with a return request, and soon
| as I said "It said free returns on the listing" any resistance
| disappeared.
| leros wrote:
| I used to have this problem, then I realized I was over
| optimizing.
|
| The eye opening experience for me happened when I needed to
| quickly setup a new kitchen so I went to Wal-Mart and just bought
| a bunch of cheap stuff as a temporary solution. I ended up being
| happy with 90% of what I bought and only re-bought a few things.
| In contrast to the meticulous research I normally do and the
| higher cost items I usually buy, I was quite surprised.
|
| The realization I had is that I was making my decisions the wrong
| way. Previously, I had been trying to find "the best item that
| didn't cost too much". Whereas the criteria should really finding
| an item "that meets my needs". It doesn't need to be the best,
| just good enough.
|
| I can now go to a store and pick up whatever random skillet they
| have without much thought and it works out 90% of the time. Much
| less stress. And when I do later realize I need something better,
| I have a better understanding of what I need so it makes shopping
| easier.
| Nomentatus wrote:
| Right. Satisficing. Lovely Walmart example. Works for getting
| rid of stuff (decluttering) too. I've downsized my belongings
| 90% by weight and have only had to rebuy a couple or three
| things (there's almost always more than one way to do what ya
| wanna do.) https://practicalpie.com/satisficing/
| akiselev wrote:
| In woodworking and other crafts this is called the "Harbor
| Freight rule": when you need a tool for the first time, you go
| buy the cheapest one from Harbor Freight. Either the tool will
| never break in which case you don't use it enough to justify
| something more expensive, or you do use it enough to break it
| at which point you've gained enough experience to shop around
| properly.
|
| This rule sounds wasteful but in the real world of uncertainty
| and risk, it pays for itself almost immediately.
| nicbou wrote:
| Decathlon is the sports equivalent
| nautilius wrote:
| I noticed I did the same thing when looking for hotels - what's
| the possibly best hotel out there for some reasonable price?
| Ooh, they have breakfast, ooooooh, but this one has breakfast
| and a bar, and this one even has a spa and nice hardwood floor!
|
| At some point I made the same switch you describe: what is my
| minimum requirement so that I do not _regret_ booking the hotel
| (for me: breakfast, reasonably close to destination, no-smoking
| on premises, rating above 8), then simply book the cheapest one
| that fulfills this. Reduced FOMO and time spent, not looking
| back.
| gcheong wrote:
| For larger purchases or specialized items I use a reputable
| review site (americas test kitchen, wire cutter, etc.) and
| sometimes cross-reference a couple sites to see if there are
| common recs. For smaller ones, I usually just get the one that
| most closely matches what I need and has overall good reviews
| figuring I can just return it if it doesn't work out.
| LunarAurora wrote:
| IMO it is often "good enough" to just buy (almost) anything
| (beside the cheapest) when the stakes are not high. And that will
| pretty much do most of the time.
|
| For important decisions, choosing the main scale(s) (and their
| weight) is a good strategy. For example, for everything food,
| scale = "healthier" for me, So this somewhat simplifies
| decisions.
|
| However, I do try to rapidly harness the "wisdom of the crowd",
| when possible. For Amazon, I've been using an extension [1]
| lately that filters results by number of reviews and rating. It
| is not science, but It's a fast way out.
|
| [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/trusty-search-
| assi...
| pesfandiar wrote:
| When there are too many choices, you have to accept you may not
| pick the optimal product, and only research enough to bring the
| options within your tolerance for sub-optimality.
| Nomentatus wrote:
| This is gonna seem weird - you're forewarned - but here goes.
|
| Kinda the equivalent of flipping a coin, but no coin (and just
| maybe better.)
|
| There used to be a hippie-dippie belief that holding, say, a food
| in your hand and then pressing down on that arm with the other
| arm would tell you what was good or bad for you. If your
| (holding) arm was weak, bad. Strong, good.
|
| Of course, that's nonsense, BUT it may be a possible way to try
| to tap into unconscious beliefs (right or wrong beliefs.) If
| you're ambivalent, it's a tie-breaker. I don't do it often, but
| it's better than just standing there cogitating.
|
| Related, at least:
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pinocchio-s-arm-a...
|
| Another heuristic - do what will most likely blow up in a visible
| way; whatever will be a noticable fail, so you learn.
| [deleted]
| andrewfromx wrote:
| there's a really good scene in the movie
| https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/12162-the-hurt-locker about
| this.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Haven't watched the movie. Can you talk a bit about that scene?
| andrewfromx wrote:
| The character is a bomb tech in the military, spent years in
| high pressure situations trying to make sure a bomb doesn't
| go off. But then his time in the military ends and he's back
| in normal life at the grocery store. He's looking at the
| endless options for breakfast cereals. And he can't do it. He
| could handle bombs but not endless choice.
| Nomentatus wrote:
| In a podcast interview the writer of the film (who was a
| war reporter I think) said he was writing from experience;
| this had actually happened to him after returning from a
| war. He hesitated before including this scene, thinking it
| might be self-indulgent and maybe not meaningful to others
| (but learned otherwise.) "Write what you know!"
| nescioquid wrote:
| Someone on the Lawfare podcast quoted a judge who said that
| _how_ a case is settled is very often not the most
| important thing. Rather, what is most often of paramount
| importance is just that a case _is_ settled, so that the
| disputants can move on with their lives.
|
| Whenever I find myself agonizing over marginal trade-offs,
| I think of this quote.
| yunwal wrote:
| My strategy:
|
| 1) Make bigger decisions - instead of buying a skillet, design
| your ideal kitchen (or if that's too big, just your set of
| pots/pans). You will either find that the skillet doesn't make
| all that much of a difference and be ok with whatever because
| it's such a small part of the job, or you'll find that the
| decision is more obvious.
|
| 2) Listen to instincts. Be willing to choose based on the things
| you might initially dismiss as "stupid" like aesthetics and how
| much joy you feel using it. A skillet should feel right in your
| hand. If you try to flip food, the weight should feel like you
| can manipulate it easily. These things usually matter much more
| than objective quality measures. This doesn't mean dismissing red
| flags, just that online reviews or "expert" opinions aren't the
| end-all-be-all.
|
| 3) Buying in person if you can helps with 2
| potamic wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. I can spend weeks and months exploring the
| most mundane things I buy. One thing I have realized is that I
| rather enjoy the process. I like to find out more about what
| comprises a quality product for a given application and how the
| various products in the market fare. And so I have let go and let
| the process take its own sweet time.
|
| Of course, every now and then you need to procure something
| immediately. For such situations, I have a fuck-it budget that I
| won't regret burning. As long as it's within that budget, I say
| fuck-it and grab the nearest thing I see.
| groffee wrote:
| It really is ridiculous, even if you're 'loyal' to a brand, even
| that one brand can have hundreds of variations of a single
| product, why??
|
| There has to be logic behind it but I don't understand it. It
| does make choosing something almost impossible.
| Leary wrote:
| Get a plugin like Fakespot to filter out all the fake reviews
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