What’s the weirdest thing you’ve purchased in under 5 minutes? Me? Not the weirdest, but it’s strange enough: I bought a kid’s friar costume in 3 minutes flat on a Friday and had it in my gleeful hands by Saturday. Amazon Prime is *mwah, chef’s kiss* for frazzled people who find themselves in need of weird things fast, right?
I used to think Prime was a life saver when my kids were babies and those diapers were being used like an unlimited data plan in an airport during a snow storm. It’s surprisingly in these middle school years that Prime is MVP in our house.
You can buy diapers just about anywhere if you’re in a pinch.
But a Where’s Waldo costume after the entire class changed their theme last minute? A replacement green Gatorade water bottle by tomorrow? Simpsons socks for crazy sock day on Wednesday? All of those random things in hand when needed, without all the time-sucking hubbub to find them is truly a relief fest.
So, the friar costume. My youngest casually looked me in the eye on a Friday morning while crunching on his mix of Rice Krispies and Krave cereals, “Mom, the Renaissance fair is Monday. Can you get that friar costume?”. Sure. I pulled up the Amazon app, searched “kids friar costume”, looked for the ones that would arrive tomorrow, and then bought the least creepy looking one. 3 minutes!
For context: it took me 2 hours to go back and forth on what to make for dinner. It took me 2 weeks to stress out, curse, overthink, and finally choose a dress for a once in a lifetime school thing for my oldest.
It aerates my brain with the smell of fresh cut pine in December when I reflect on how Amazon has made buying anything as fast and easy as breathing. But deciding whether to have tuna salad (that the kids will revolt against) or pasta anything (that I will revolt against)? Not so easy.
Here’s the difference in all of these experiences: DATA!!
You see, we humans get overwhelmed when things get complicated or big.
Hick’s Law: The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices available.
This is when I, a professional data nerd (more fun than it sounds, really), call on 2 biiiiig elements to combat the overwhelm of complexity and choice:
- Good data
- Presented well.
And sometimes: 3. A big bag of crunchy Cool Ranch Doritos (totally optional)
Good data and good design are like dark chocolate and sea salt. They make an epic pairing.
Let’s see how that plays out in my real life examples, shall we?
Scenario 1: Need to buy a kids friar costume. (amazon)
Good Data: The big 3: Price, When it’ll arrive, Customer Ratings
Presented Well: The big 3, right there on the results page, where I can easily compare (and buy!!). No need to click in for details, unless I want to.
Time to decision: 3 minutes.
I came, I searched, I bought. Tell me those costume listings aren’t creepy.
Scenario 2: What to make for dinner (allrecipes)
Good Data: Boo. There’s 0 data points to help me make a decision. The headlines are competing for my click. I don’t see any summer recipes and I don’t want to click in and see 22 recipes that I may not even like.
Presented Well: The presentation is clean and easy to skim, so there’s that. But what’s the point, there’s no good data!
While the presentation was good, the lack of good data forced me to rely on the anecdotal data in front of me:
- It’s warm and I don’t want anything hot
- I’m over Chicken.
- Our foster bunny is almost out of food, so I have to go to the grocery store no matter what.
Time to decision: 2 hours, not using any of the recipes from the site after all.
Scenario 3: Need to buy an outfit that slays for a once in a lifetime school thing
Good Data: Wouldn’t ya know it? There’s no good data that I can use to find what to wear to an important school event. Instead, I needed to make a series of assumptions (and/or poll like 100 moms to see what they are wearing)
The anecdotal assumptions/questions I used to make progress:
- Event in June in Chicago.
- Might be roasting.
- Might be cold?
- Fancy people.
- Outside, I think?
Presented Well: No data, no real presentation. Just a series of figuring out.
Time to decision: 2 weeks. I gave up and despaired at least 8 times. This one decision ate up copious sums of time and energy.
Yes, Amazon and some of its business practices are highly questionable and problematic. I acknowledge that. But, when it comes to helping people make buying decisions faster and easier (so they spend more of course), I’m dazzled. I would give up wine for a year for a platform to make meal planning as easy and painless as breathing. Cause right now? It’s the wet sand of my existence. Also, if you know of such a platform, please hook me up!
So, Are there any decisions you need to make that could be dramatically sped up if you had good data, presented well? Where would your business benefit from the Amazon Prime buying experience?
Here’s an example:
Let’s say you’re a restauranteur who has been experimenting with hiring live bands, and aren’t sure whether to keep going.
Imagine you had some good data: nightly sales – by categories like drinks, apps, mains and by products like: spicy margs, calamari, and burgers
Imagine it was presented well – and you quickly see that Friday Live Band night was 40% more profitable than any other night in drink sales! The top purchased drink was the themed drink created by the bartender for the night (and now you knew your bartender was in fact right – people are suckers for a themed drink) and large pizzas were the top selling food.
How much faster and easier would your decision be with good data, presented well?
At the end of the day, it’s not just about the decisions that need to be made. It’s about the experience of making them and the costs involved.
Every decision you need to make has a time and energy cost – and you have a limited supply of both.
Are you spending so much time and energy on the friar costumes and water bottle purchases, that you’ve got nothing left in the tank for the really important decisions—like how to love yourself a little more today, or what to do to kill it at work or in your biz, or whether you should move your family to Spain, or (of course) the mack daddy of them all: what to wear to a fancy school function in Chicago in the middle of June, with 100 other fancy moms, in an outdoor tent somewhere, with a really weird punch bowl, and no one to tell you how to behave.
