Why Less Became More
When I first launched my website, I had more than 100 different products.
Different colours.
Different designs.
Different styles.
My thinking was simple.
The more choices I offered, the more likely customers would find something they liked and buy it.
At least that's what I thought.
Over time, I noticed something strange.
No matter how many products I added, customers kept buying the same few things.
And most of the time, red.
Meanwhile, some products barely moved at all.
A few best sellers were constantly selling out, while other designs just sat there collecting dust.
I couldn't understand it.
Because I've always believed in giving people more choices.
Then one day, completely unrelated to flowers, I bought two good cashmere sweaters.
They were soft.
Warm.
Comfortable.
And they looked good every single time I wore them.
Before that, I would stand in front of a full wardrobe every morning, spending ten or fifteen minutes deciding what to wear.
Sometimes I still managed to look terrible.
After the cashmere sweaters arrived, my morning routine became much simpler.
Choose one of the two sweaters.
Choose a pair of black Lululemon pants.
Done.
That was the moment I finally understood the idea that less can be more.
I had fewer decisions to make.
Everything was easier.
Everything felt better.
And suddenly I understood why Steve Jobs wore basically the same thing every day.
Then it hit me.
Maybe my customers felt the same way.
I imagined myself as a man trying to buy a gift for his wife.
I open the Luna & Ray website.
There are one hundred different flowers.
Different colours.
Different flower types.
Different packaging.
Would I feel excited?
Probably not.
I'd feel confused.
Because I don't know what most flowers mean.
I don't know what most colours mean.
At that point, I'd either buy a red rose or leave the website entirely.
And that's exactly why red roses are still our best sellers.
That was the moment everything started making sense.
My customers don't want more decisions.
Especially small decisions.
Most people already spend their entire day making choices.
What to wear.
What to eat.
What to watch.
What to buy.
By the time they need a gift, they're tired.
My job isn't to give them one hundred options.
My job is to curate.
To say:
"This one works."
"This one won't let you down."
"We'll wrap it beautifully."
"We'll write the card."
"We've already thought about the details."
After that, I slowly started reducing our product range.
Some designs disappeared.
Some colours disappeared.
Some products stayed.
And surprisingly, the best sellers became even stronger.
One day, Ray and I decided to run an experiment.
I told him:
"Imagine you're a man looking for a gift for your wife."
He looked at me and said:
"I am a man don't need to imagine!"
Fair point.
So I asked him to show me exactly how he would shop.
What happened next was fascinating.
He landed on the homepage.
Ignored almost everything.
Clicked the menu.
Clicked Best Sellers.
Picked something that looked nice.
Looked through the photos.
Checked the size.
Checked the price.
And then he was ready to buy.
I was shocked.
"You're not going to look at anything else?"
"I wrote all that information!"
His answer:
"It's too long. I just looked at the pictures."
As a woman, my online shopping process is completely different.
I'll open ten products.
Read everything.
Add ten items to my cart.
Remove nine of them.
And eventually buy one.
Men are fascinating creatures.
That experiment taught me something important.
I am not my customer.
And because of that, I've spent the last year simplifying everything.
The website.
The product range.
The ordering process.
Even the amount of text.
Sometimes more isn't better.
Sometimes less is exactly what people need.
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