A cool dice bag with spiderweb design in gray and silver
I’ve recently been thrown into the deep end of the world of dice bags while working on the dice store. As a gamer myself, I’m very familiar with the awesomeness of dice and the variety of dice available out there. What I was apparently insufficiently educated about is the incredible selection of dice bags that are available as well.
Don’t get me wrong, I always knew there was a good dice bag selection. In my mind, though, dice bags fell into one of a couple categories: there are the super cheap crappy dice bags that can hold one little set of dice and you’re done. Then there’s the velour dice bags that are your more or less standard variety, which are good for several sets of dice. Historically this is what I’ve usually used. Then at the upper end there’s the leather or fake leather dice bags for the true dice fans who want only the best storage for their dice.
Aside from these basics, the only other kind of dice bag I was really aware of was the chain mail dice bag. Boy oh boy is there a lot more.
In fact, the variety of dice bags is nearly as staggering as the variety of dice. The key to it is that plenty of companies manufacture dice bags with designs printed on the fabric of the bag itself, which opens up a world of possibility: dice bags with spiderwebs printed across it, ones with designs and logos, blood splatters, just about anything really. Heck, I even found a dice bag that was actually a cthulhu plush, specifically for holding your Call of Cthulhu dice.
How Much is Too Much
Did you see that subtitle? Awesome right? It makes things easier to read by breaking up the wall of text. I’m working on doing that more.
But the point here is that I was reading some research that talked about how giving consumers too many options put them in a kind of analysis paralysis where it actually became harder and harder to make a decision. It is, apparently, much easier to choose between two dice bags than it is to choose between a hundred dice bags.
The implication here is that if you’re running a place where people buy dice online, and dice bags too, then carrying too many dice bags could actually reduce your dice bag sales. Too few though, and people feel like there’s not enough selection, or they don’t find something they’re excited about. Like Goldilocks, there’s some magical middle number.
I’m not too worried about this on the dice bag front though — my bigger concern is the dice themselves. We got a pretty broad selection of dice right now, and the plan was always to grow that selection as the store grows, with an ultimate goal of having just about everything. The idea of being some super complete one-stop-shop for every kind of dice imaginable is compelling, but according to the research that might actually hurt the performance. In my mind that would be a huge draw — people would know that they can get any kind of dice at the store, so they’d be more likely to return, more likely to find just the right dice, and more likely to spread the word. Now I’m worried that I may have to revise that “carry it all!” mentality.
Of course, it’d be foolish to make that kind of decision off of ready just one study. Probably more testing is needed, and more reading. Happily (or maybe not happily) it’s going to be a while before I have the option to carry every kind of dice anyway.
