The Case Study of Crashed Corvettes and Short Stem Roses, And How Amazon and Starbucks Currently Utilize My Findings

Hop into the way-back machine my friends as we visit 1988. I had two jobs at the time and was the only person I knew who had a personal computer (A Tandy TRS-80!) There was a lot to learn about consumer behavior even before the web. This is many years before user experience, research, and design became the buzzwords of the digital age.

Lesson One: “Don't Give Your Customer Too Many Options”

My friend's dad had a business where he bought total loss cars from insurance companies and sold them to mechanics and body shop owners to repair and resell. I would go to the auctions and assist in the procurement of cars. Corvettes were one of our favorites, and at one auction we were able to secure four cars. When we got back my boss stated, “place three of them in storage, and put one in the yard for purchase.” This was confusing, and so I asked him why we wouldn't place them all on the lot. His answer was hard to believe. “If we put them all back there, we won't sell any.” This did not make any sense, and so I pried further. He explained, “If we put them back there together, the buyers will hem and haw as to which one might generate the highest return. In the end, they will want to 'sleep on it.' If I place one in the yard, they will buy it immediately as they will be concerned that someone else will buy it if they don't act. I told him that this was ridiculous. He decided to prove it to me. (which I REALLY appreciated)

We placed all the cars out in the yard for one week, and I expected they would all be gone on day one. We sold none. Then we did it his way. We sold one car every day until they were gone. I added this to my lessons learned file. Currently, if you have an Amazon Merch account and want to sell T-Shirts there are 30 available colors for you to add your designs to. Amazon only allows you to select a half dozen and notes that if you have too many options folks won't buy. Bezos' team understands the same basic principal that my old boss knew empirically. Too many options can cause buyer duress and will stop them in their journey to complete a purchase.

Lesson Two: “Words Matter”

My father owned a large florist in New York, and I worked there as a designer. We were a very high volume shop and sold thousands of roses per week. Roses arrived from the growers marked in centimeters. The industry decided to develop names that would make sense to the end-users. So most florists sold short, medium, and long stem roses.

While designing, I was close enough to the salespeople that I could overhear all of their conversations with the customers. No one wanted to buy “short stem” roses. There were two issues that I could ascertain from my eavesdropping. The first was that the buyer did not want to seem like they were being cheap. The other was that some buyers believed that the word “short” meant substandard.

The short stem roses were reasonably long, and looked great in a vase. I hatched a plan. I would have completed designs in our showcase that featured the short stem roses. Certainly, once they saw the beautiful end product, they would think differently. This didn't help, folks were still not interested. I just had to accept that “short stem” roses were a very unpopular item in our shop and that we should discontinue selling them. I had another idea and made a last-ditch effort. It was successful, and the reason why was interesting.

We started selling medium, long, and extra-long stem roses. They were exactly the same lengths as the previous products. I even suggested that we raise the prices of all three when we made the nomenclature change. Medium stem roses became incredibly popular overnight. Folks appreciated the value. The day before they cost less, but today the exact same product seemed to have more value. Words matter. We never stocked or sold short stem roses again.

Have you ever tried to buy a small coffee at Starbucks? Well you can't because the smallest on the menu is TALL! Starbucks has drawn a similar conclusion.

So as a final observation, I would say this to the folks who study user behaviors as a vocation. The ways that we are interacting have changed significantly, but humans themselves have not. Don't design your business with a focus on technology. Keep your focus on the humans, and help them get the most value out of your technology. Humans are interesting, fickle, weird creatures, and robots are not going to change us...at least not quickly.

SIDE NOTE: I am only a quarter of the way through a new book, and it is fascinating. “Design For How People Think – Using Brain Science To Build Better Products by John Whalen, PhD." I highly recommend it. Check it out here...