FOBO (Fear of Better Options) is caused because of too many choices available to a person that causes anxiety in minds of consumers and the reason for individuals to face failure to make an exceptional purchase into their budget. FOBO also encourages overspending. If you look at buyer behaviour today you will see that consumers are confused due to product similarity, wide range of choice and information overload. It is difficult for most people to grasp and store information causing difficulty in decision making. Overload of information creates ambiguity in understanding an issue and effectively making decisions when one has too much information.
Today’s markets are characterized by a plethora of choice. For example when you enter a departmental store to buy a product as simple as laundry detergent, you see hundreds of local and global brands on shelves with lots of categories. When buying detergents, you can choose between liquid, powder, solid (soap), or a combination of liquid and solid. You can also buy additives such as softener, spot cleaner, and starch. Besides this and the fact that you have to decide whether to buy a detergent for colored, white or a combination of colored and white clothes; when you see such a large variety, which further gives you a choice that you can select a product for sensitive skin or normal, while also considering the ecological labelling. The fact that each detergent works differently with different types of water is also a matter of importance, and as you notice, a simple product as detergents is suddenly not as simple as one first thought it to be, it becomes complex adding hurdles to your decision making.
With increasing awareness in medical science due to easy access to Internet, a large number of people are now opting for ‘doctor shopping’. This is the tendency of a patient to request care from several doctors trying to weigh pros and cons of treatment. This is also the FOBO syndrome.
Age is not the criteria in getting married; men and women and LGBT think about getting the “right” partner for getting married. It is more important to pick the “right” life partner while it is very difficult to define what is right? In the haste of finding much better partner than current one, people get divorced. Few recent studies show that people assume their current or future marriage will prolong forever. While choosing a life partner, people choose a lot of things, including whether the to be spouse has parenting experience, eating habits, tidiness, hobbies, practical approach, money power, fiends circle, affiliations in society, qualifications, upbringing, looks, manners and etiquettes etc,
I wonder, when people check on so many parameters before getting married, how is it possible that so many good, smart, logical people end up choosing a life partnership that leaves them dissatisfied and unhappy?
Substitution offers wide range for choices when making buying decision by providing equally good alternatives, thus increasing utility. A substitute good is not necessarily just a physical product it can also be a service. In fact, it is defined as a product or service that is used in place of another. A substitute good is a similar product that can be used instead of another. In other words, it is comparable enough to be used for the same function. For example, iPhone, Google Pixel 5, Nokia 8.3 5G, OnePlus 8 Pro, Motorola Edge+, LG Wing 5G, Sony Xperia 1 I, DOOGEE S96 Pro and Galaxy Note are all substitutes and they all are comparable on few parameters. So if you want a phone, you have these listed plus some more options.
FOBO leads to decidophobia which is defined as the “irrational fear of making decisions.” In its most extreme form, those who have this fear often experience full blown panic attacks when even thinking about having to make a decision.
We make an average 35,000 conscious decisions a day as adults, and children make approximately 3,000 decisions a day! These figures are based on multiple sources on the Internet. Some of our decisions are impulsive and some are logical. So you see we make decisions practically each moment in a day. Some are quick, some are simple, and some are difficult, each decision, no matter big or small, can affect our life in long run. But, it’s important to make decision based on our own instinct. If we depend on someone else’s notion to made decisions of our life, someday the dependency will cost us hell of a lot.
Most of us know about FOMO (fear of missing out), but now we have to grapple with FOBO (fear of better options) the latest term to be coined that may explain our inability to make even the simplest of decisions due to choice overload, which in turn could be fuelling our anxiety. FOMO is experienced especially when we visit a restaurant. When we look at the plethora of items in the menu card, we get so damn confused in choosing what to eat and what not to. Deciding on a dish can be difficult enough and someone else’s dish always looks better.
It doesn’t help that we have thousands of options at our fingertips. With so many choices when it comes to shopping, socialising and even dating, it’s stupid to wonder that something or someone is better out there. FOBO keeps us from committing to any choice in a hope that another, more optimal opportunity of having a product/service may come along.
Because of too many substitutions people suffer from FOBO as we have so little time and want to make sure we’re making the best decisions with that time. The eternal search for the perfect possible outcome only leads to anxiety and regret. Our ability to compare options and ourselves via social media has accelerated this tendency. Filtering out all of these options is mentally draining, which can lead to poor decision-making or decision fatigue.
Many bad decisions can be repaired or altered. Some decisions become favourable while some do not. But as far as possible we must try to avoid FOBO syndrome.
