The mere categorization effect for complex products: The moderating role of expertise and affect

Consumers face an ever-growing amount of product choice and information. In particular, consumers unfamiliar with the product domain have difficulties to see differences in choice sets and to process information. In order to facilitate choice-making for novices buying simple, non-complex products, Mogilner, Rudnick, and Iyengar (2008) propose that retailers provide some – indeed any – form of categorization in the presentation of large assortments. Mogilner et al. observe a so-called mere categorization effect for novices but not for experts; irrespective of the actual content of category labels, categories for simple products increase perceived variety and choice satisfaction of novices. The present studies investigate the categorization hypothesis for complex products (cell phones). The main hypothesis is that the mere categorization effect will not hold for novices buying complex products. In the first experiment, for novices, only informative category labels applied to the options reduce perceived difficulty of choosing. For experts, category labels, mere or informative, have no effect on perceived difficulty of choosing. However, a second experiment identifies affect as an important moderator of categorization. When buying a complex product affectively, novices show a pattern similar to the mere categorization effect. For complex products, uninformative category labels are just as effective as informative labels for novices deciding affectively.