How Many Is Too Many?

We've been working on renovating our kitchen recently and I decided to go online to a specific hardware website and take a look at some sinks.  I wanted to see what styles were out there now and get an idea on pricing.

Now most websites have very convenient search buttons and as the larger companies have such a variety of things, it can save you a lot of time.  In theory anyway....

So, there I am, sitting at my computer and I type in "kitchen sink".  A new page opened, with a two column list in answer to my search for a kitchen sink.  I started reading and scrolling to see the different sinks.  To my surprise, this was not what I saw.  There were faucets, scrubbers, pipes, soap dishes, etc.  Absolutely everything you'd use or need in a kitchen, but no sinks.  As I scrolled to the bottom, I saw that the number of pages of items that met my search criteria was 26.  Twenty-size pages to search through and hope that at least one or two had a sink.  See, I didn't want to skip any, just in case there was a sink hiding in one of the page.  I very cleverly thought that if I asked for the search to be categorized by price (high to low), that would bring the sinks to the first page - Not!  It brought countertops and cupboards.  Not as bright as I thought I guess.

This got me thinking about websites for favors and, yes, candywrappers.  Many of them have absolutely everything you can think of (and some you didn't think of) that are in any way related to their main product or theme.  I must admit that I've gotten lost in some of those websites, just sitting here, browsing through at all the great ideas and products.  Hours go by before I realize how long I've just been scrolling through, looking at everything.

But what if I'm a customer who knows exactly what she wants and just want to get to that page where I can see if they have it, purchase it and move on?  And as the owner of the website, is it actually worth it to have so many different products to keep track of or on hand?  Is the fact that you sold lollipops to one customer last year worth keeping them in your inventory?

Bottom line, is it really necessary to offer everything and anything, just in case a customer, one day, might happen upon your website and buy one?

Personally, I gave up searching for the sink.  It was taking way too long and they were too hard to find.  I ended up doing a Google search for it and went to websites that had just sinks.  It turned out that they're prices were lower and there was tons of useful information on things like how to measure, installation, different materials they're made out of, etc.

A wise person once told me that It is better to be the expert at one or two things, than to do a half-ass job at many.

So, the million dollar question is.... How many is too many?  What is the saturation point where that's enough.  It could be when things are too hard to find on your websites, or it may be when you have so many products, your homepage looks like an apartment, with mini windows of products stacked ontop of one another, perhaps it's when a potential customer visits your website, stays for a couple of hours and still doesn't buy anything.  Perhaps it's when you have piles of boxes sitting in your garage and you've never opened them to ship the products to any customers.

I took stock in my website a long time ago and removed a lot of things that I thought were a good idea or people would find useful.  Turns out, just because I thought they were, doesn't mean my customers did.  I trimmed down to those products that were actually being purchased or used.  The other things no longer clutter up my website or my office.