A world full of choices....

Do you ever get that feeling that it's just too exhausting to go shop for shoes! Well that's because there are just too many choices. By the time i reach "i want this" im too tired to be bothered to go on and figure it out. Why does this happen?
Well as a user if i am given a whole lot of choices which are too similar to each other but have a small element of difference then im gonna get all muddled up.
For online shopping, choices are good so long as they are not creating confusion and exhaustion for the user.
First of all if the user is shopping online:
-S/he probably doesnt have the time or patience to go to a store and browse and get confused.
-S/he prefers doing their homeowork online so that store shopping is one stop shop for them.
-S/he has the patience of a 5 year old to actually sit and figure out what you're trying to offer.

I like to categorize users into 3 areas. The Zero, the Hero and pretty much everthing else in between*.
No matter what category the user may fall into they come onto a website with a set of questions that already exists in their head before they typed the URL or searched your site out. You dont want to give them a web page that brings up so many choices that makes them think so hard that they will end up forgetting why they came there in the first place.
-Mindless choices is what they are looking for.
-No confusion browsing is what they look forward to.
As a designer it's imperative to provide the above for an experience the user will enjoy.

*Zero-new to the internet, Hero-power users, everything else in between- well need i say more.