From a business standpoint, it’s understandable why someone would want to be all things to all people. By doing so, the assumption is that you can capture the largest possible demographic and, as a result, generate the largest possible profit. However, this is not necessarily the case.

It was observed by respected American psychologist and New York Times contributor Barry Schwartz that more could really be less. As it turns out, consumers are typically more likely to spend more money when they are offered fewer options. His book describes a case regarding presale homes and how the buyers were more likely to pay for upgrades (and more expensive upgrades) when they were offered fewer choices.

You can take advantage of this human psychology when it comes to your own business. Yes, you want to offer your customers some degree of choice. You don’t want to be the kind of company that offers jackets in every color that the customer wants so long as that color is black. However, you have to careful about overdoing this approach, as it could simply paralyze the customer with too many possibilities.

Consider the business strategy employed by Apple. With each successive generation of product, they quickly phase out the old generation. If you want to buy an iPhone today, you realistically only have the choice between the different capacities of the iPhone 4. This simplifies the decision process. The same can be said about each iPod model, each MacBook model, and so on. With this simplicity, Apple is able to enjoy incredible profits. And you can too.