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Why Do People Always Pick My Middle Package?

Why Do People Always Pick My Middle Package?Actual subject line that landed in my inbox:

“Help me solve a sales mystery, please?”

Well, fetch me my cape, Watson!  There are games afoot!

(Obviously I watch too much BBC.  Also, I like good subject lines.)

The email:

I know there has to be an answer to this quandary, I just can’t find it. My magic purchase number appears to be 15 images. I have three photo packages 10, 15, 25 (all). People most often choose the middle one despite it being the worst value (25/all is the best value by far).

And when I’ve done a la carte sales, clients choose 15 images regardless of how many or how few images I show them. (Here’s what’s additionally odd about it, a la carte pricing comes out to the same amount for 15 images as the 25/all package price.)

I can’t figure out why 15, and more importantly, I can’t figure out how to make that work for me. 

 

:: Rubbing hands together ::

Oh, I do love a good psychology whodunit.

Now.  According to Moriarty, “Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain.”

And in this case, we probably have two psychological ‘villains’:

Villain #1:  Central Tendency

In short?  People like picking the middle option.

And I mean, they REALLY like picking the middle option.

Psychology researchers have had a field day proving this point.

Show people five random photos – in a horizontal line or a vertical column – and ask them which they like best?  They tend to pick the middle one.

Present a display of five pairs of identical socks and ask people which they prefer?  The one in the middle.

Randomly assign people to spots on a stage for a game show?  The people assigned to the middle are more likely to win, and observers tend to overlook errors made by people in the middle.

Ask people to rate something on a scale of 1 to 5, or 1 to 7?  Most people tend to pick one of the numbers in the middle over the numbers on the edges.  No matter what it is they are rating or what their actual opinion is if you asked them a different way.  (This is actually a huge problem for things like performance evaluations, because when everyone gets rated “in the middle” it becomes impossible to differentiate between people!)

Why would this be?

why-do-people-pick-middle-package-6310Well, put on your own buyer’s hat for a moment: You’re probably familiar with this internal dialogue –

“Well, I don’t want something cheap, that won’t be enough / it must be lower quality.  And I don’t want the most expensive, that’s a luxury.  I don’t need to spend that much.  I’ll go with the middle one!”

That middle preference, though, is reinforced by other subtle influences – we think the middle option is the most representative option, the one that makes us the most like everyone else (we don’t want to pick an extreme and stand out).  Or that it’s the most important one, or – like Baby Bear in Goldilocks, that it’s the one that is “just right.”

Also?  We are kind of lazy.

Even when doing something like answering a survey, people don’t like going to the mental effort to consider and report their real opinion.  So if you give them a “neutral” option on a scale of 1 to 5, they’ll pick that rather than go to the effort of deciding.

This happens when people buy, too. When you give people a lot of choices, when the choices are complex, or when they are uncertain about their actual preferences, they will go with the thing that seems to minimize the work it will take to decide:  They’ll take the one in the middle. 

So what can we do about this?

Are people always picking the middle package, and that’s not optimal for you or them?

I’d simply make the middle package the thing you most want people to buy.  That way they can feel like they’re picking the average/best/reasonable offer.

In this email, the photographer already established that the top package is the best value, so I’d just bump that one down to the middle and invent a new top package.  (You might need to adjust the bottom package accordingly.)

Especially if people are choosing 15 images a la carte and it ends up being the same price as your top package anyway – this selection is most likely the way you’re framing the decision than any kind of absolute preference!

(Want another way to get people to buy your top package?  Go grab How Clients Make Decisions About Money – it’s free!)

But there’s the second part to this mystery:

The photographer who sent in this question occasionally has a session where she doesn’t offer packages, only a la carte.  And when she takes away the packages, she finds that people still order 15 images.  Why would that be?

I’m guessing it’s partly –

why-do-people-pick-middle-package-6305Villain #2:  The Anchor Effect – with some twists

We’ve talked about anchoring before, (and if you’ve read How Clients Make Decisions About Money, you’re a pro at this), but in short:

People grab the first number they see and weigh everything else against it.  Especially if they aren’t sure what’s typical.

If a client looks at your site and sees three packages of 10, 15, and 25 images, these might still become their “anchor” numbers because they will look ‘typical.’  They’ll say “okay, the average/middle/usual is 15 images,” and that weighs on their mind when they go purchase a la carte.

I looked at the website of the photographer who sent in this question, and sure enough, the packages are listed there.  I can’t be certain, but I’d bet that a la carte clients had looked at her site and saw the package numbers and had that in their minds, even if they weren’t aware of it.

Here are two other possible explanations + things to play with:

why-do-people-pick-middle-package-6298

This photographer tends to show 25-30 images, and 15 is still a relatively “middle,” central tendency number.  It could easily be a “10 is too few, not enough.  20 is too many, I don’t need them all.  So 15 is about right,” – another Baby Bear style situation.  That could change if she started showing 15 or 35 images instead.

– People also like whole, round numbers.  Research shows that in a “pay what you want” type situation, people tend to pick round whole numbers – $5 rather than, say, $6.73.  People like the ease of the mental math involved.

And in leaving tips, the overwhelming majority – 73% – leave whole dollar amounts, and another 8% rounded to the nearest half-dollar.  A significant number of people also change their tip to make the final bill a round number – adding extra dimes and pennies to turn $24.57 into a simple $25.

We like stuff that is easy to add.

So if your a la carte price adds up to something like $300 or $500 or $900 for 15 images, you could be experiencing a rounding effect – people have an easier time calculating $20 x 15 than $20 x 17, and so it might simply feel more “sensible” to them.  You could try raising the a la carte price $1, which would force them to pull out a calculator, or $5 or $10, to keep the easy math going but perhaps they’d buy more to end up at a “better” round number.  Try playing with the price and seeing where the round numbers land.

In short – you are smart to assume that there is more at work here than just “people want 15 images.”

Sales decisions are highly influenced by a number of mental shortcuts, and knowing this can help you make a more workable price list.

(If you liked this post, check out that free mini class I mentioned – How Clients Make Decisions About Money.)

 

Sherlock out.

 

Jenika

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10 Comments

  1. Beth Herzhaft on September 14, 2016 at 7:47 am

    So here’s a further curveball question: I am familiar with the psychology of the middle decision-making, however how do you feel about *the order items are presented within* the pricelist?

    Originally, I had my list in order of cheap, middle, expensive. But this had the unfortunate effect of people leaning toward wanting the cheapest one! Then I experimented with moving the middle priced package up to the top of the pricelist so people would view that first.

    And voila! it does seem that more people choose the middle package. But this experience would seem to indicate that the psychology was more about what they saw *first* and not what was in the middle. Do you have any thoughts on this?

    • Jenika on September 23, 2016 at 8:43 pm

      Hey Beth – I sure do have thoughts on that! I wrote them down in How Clients Make Decisions About Money, which is free and available in The Shop – there’s a part about how the order of your packages changes what people buy. Hope it helps!

    • Jenika on September 23, 2016 at 9:01 pm

      Here’s another post you might find useful:

      https://psychologyforphotographers.com/how-should-you-list-your-prices

  2. Mike on September 14, 2016 at 1:55 pm

    Unfortunately, people can be rather fickle so perhaps we need to mess around with their minds a bit.

    For example, offer just two options instead of three. This doesn’t give them a middle option to choose from. The high priced one can be overly high and the other one can be at what we actually want to sell at to make a decent profit. If we get the higher price it’s more cream on the cake. More like a choice between a Rolls Royce car and a VW. They both do the same job of getting us from A to B, but there’s a perception of higher added value in the RR that might not be within their ability to pay for it. It’s a bit of a game, but in the end we need a Win/Win situation that everybody is happy with.

    Perhaps we don’t fully understand that people don’t want to be perceived as extremists. They take the easy option instead, so by negotiating between the benefits and features of what we offer, we can win and the client does too.

    • Jenika on September 15, 2016 at 5:01 pm

      Thanks for your thoughts, Mike! Offering two, with the “baseline” package being what you most want to sell, is definitely a good option.

      Some people might implement that and find that their clients resist the lack of options, or want to “take things away from” that first baseline package. If so, it’d be in their interest to then create a lower package but make the middle one appear a better value so that people still choose the middle. Some people don’t want to feel “cheap” and feel good when they don’t pick the bare bones option, so it sort of depends on who you are marketing to and what you find when you do some testing. That’s really another key point here – testing.

      Appreciate your thoughts!

  3. Jen on September 14, 2016 at 8:47 pm

    What happens if you only offer two packages? Since I’ve been doing this they usually pick the cheaper one. Is it n my interest to create a middle package then?

    • Jenika on September 15, 2016 at 4:58 pm

      You could either make the cheaper one what you actually want to sell, or yes, introduce a third with the middle one being what you most want to sell. And of course, make sure the one you’re pointing to is in the best interest of the client – which I bet it will be.

  4. Beth Herzhaft on September 15, 2016 at 10:22 pm

    I am familiar with the psychology of the middle decision-making, however how do you feel about *the order items are presented within* the pricelist?
    Originally, I had my list in order of cheap, middle, expensive. But this had the unfortunate effect of people leaning toward wanting the cheapest one! Then I experimented with moving the middle priced package up to the top of the pricelist so people would view that first.
    And voila! it does seem that more people choose the middle package. But this experience would seem to indicate that the psychology was more about what they saw *first* and not what was in the middle. Do you have any thoughts on this?

  5. Andrea on September 16, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    I’m jumping on the “two packages train” 😉 As I read your article, I thought for one moment that my third option is missing and should be added. But then I thought it would overcomplicate my special pricing system – what do you think?
    On my website, if a client wants to order prints, he has to make two decisions – 1. Canvas or album – 2. Digital files (low and high quality). Together with the session fee it makes the price of the package. It is a customized package like “a la carte light” 😉
    I love the flexibility and simplicity it has for my customers. But it lacks a third option… What are your thoughts on this?

    • Jenika on September 21, 2016 at 12:34 am

      Lightness and simplicity are always good. Ultimately we have to keep in mind what a package is – it’s a set of decisions you have made for your clients to make things easier for them, because they’d have no idea how to go about building a bundle of good things. Some people will have 2, some will have 3. If you have 3, keep in mind that the “middle” acts as a sort of default, so keep that in mind when you set it. If you have 2, make sure the “baseline” one is likely to lead to a satisfactory sale for you, because they are going to compare everything against it. So I wouldn’t say you should add another package, simply pay attention to what your defaults/baselines are and set them accordingly. I hope that makes sense!

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