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Imagine this…
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You need a new suitcase for an upcoming trip to Spain, so you hop on Amazon.
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You type “carry-on luggage” into the search bar and watch in horror as more than 10,000 results pop up.
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You could spend the next 10 days of your life reading every review, comparing dimensions, watching unboxing videos, and calculating the cost-per-use based on how often you travel.
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But you’re not going to do that. Primarily because you literally can’t.

All you know is you want a hard-shell case with a laptop compartment.
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So you filter by “Best Sellers,” click the first few that meet your criteria, and once you find one with good reviews and a good price, you’re done.
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​“Good enough,” you think as you add the black hard-shell suitcase to your cart and check out.
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Did you find the absolute best suitcase on the entire Internet? Probably not. But you *did* find one that’ll get your stuff to Spain.
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​Why did you stop searching when thousands of potentially better options were still out there?
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​In today’s edition of Why We Buy 🧠 we’ll explore Bounded Rationality—why we make “good enough” decisions instead of optimal ones.
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​Let’s get into it.

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🧠 The Psychology of Bounded Rationality

Before social scientist Herbert A. Simon, traditional economics assumed people always made perfectly rational decisions.
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Apparently, we’d weigh every option, calculate every outcome, and, consequently, choose the absolute best solution.
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But in 1955, Simon pointed out something pretty obvious: We don’t have unlimited information or brainpower to do that.
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So instead of optimizing (finding the best choice), we satisfice—a combo of “satisfy” and “suffice.” That is, instead of chasing perfection, we pick the option that meets our minimum needs and move on.

We can’t evaluate every available option. We don’t know all the possible results of our choices.
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And even if we could somehow access all that complex information, we don’t have the time or mental capacity to analyze every variable before making a rational decision.
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So it’s no surprise that satisficing often makes us happier with our decisions. (One study found that maximizers felt more regret after making a purchase.)
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That’s why smart marketers don’t overload you with complex choices that your brain prefers not to think about.
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Instead, they make it ridiculously easy for you to satisfice.

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🤑 How To Apply This

Alright, so how can you apply this right now to sell more?
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Ads​
Show your product actually does what you claim

Trying to buy ethical eggs sounds easy until you’re faced with vague labels like “cage-free” and “free-range” that you suspect don’t mean what you think they do.
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That’s why Vital Farms’ ads show their pasture-raised hens roaming open fields, making the truly ethical choice feel obvious.

By cutting through confusion with sticky, visual proof, they help buyers satisfice faster—without spending hours researching options.
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So customers pay more for Vital Farms’ eggs.

Subscriptions​
Present curated options to speed up decisions

Netflix knows you’re not gonna scroll through thousands of movies and TV shows in their library to find the “perfect” option.

So the second you open the app, they show you curated options like “We Think You’ll Love These.”

By narrowing choices down to best-for-you, Netflix removes decision fatigue, makes it easy to find an option you’ll deem “good enough,” and gets you watching faster with their streaming service (instead of bouncing to another).

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Technology​
Use your authority to trigger satisficing

Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button did something radical: It skipped search results entirely and took you straight to the top search result.

No comparing or evaluating. Just the thought of “Google picked this, so it’s good enough for me.“

When a trusted brand presents a top choice, users are happy to skip the mental work and assume the result is satisfactory.

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💥 The Short of It

Your customers aren’t looking for perfect. They’re looking for good enough.
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So you don’t need to overload them with options. (In fact, this is why you shouldn’t.) And you definitely shouldn’t make them think too hard.

Because the easier you make it to satisfice, the more you sell.
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​​Until next time, happy selling!