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Customers’ online shopping preferences in mass customization

Article  in  Journal of Direct Data and Digital Marketing Practice · July 2013

DOI: 10.1057/dddmp.2013.34

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Thomas Aichner Paolo Coletti

John Cabot University Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
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Thomas Aichner
is a PhD student in Management Customers’ online shopping
Engineering at the Department of
Management and Engineering of preferences in mass
the University of Padova. He
earned his BSc in Economics and
Management at LUSPIO
customization
University, his MSc in European
Business at ESCP Europe and his
Thomas Aichner and Paolo Coletti
Received (in revised form): 8th July 2013
MA in Management at the
University of Trento. His
research is mainly focused on
mass customization, e-commerce Abstract
and international marketing.
Mass customization has become important to business because of the
Paolo Coletti
is a researcher at the School of
difficulties for customers in finding what they want despite an increase
Economics and Management of in product variety for many categories over the past decades. The
Free University of Bozen emergence of modern technologies in production and communication,
Bolzano, Italy, where he is also a however, allows companies to offer customised products and services
lecturer on Information Systems
without relinquishing economies of scale. The advent of web interfaces
and Data Management courses.
He is an expert in applied has finally given the opportunity to achieve completely the involvement
statistical analysis and has of the customer in the product’s entire design process. The results of
published articles and books in our survey on more than 500 European customers show a declining
different fields, such as tourism
willingness of customers to compromise on the issue of suitability
surveys, new technologies for
financial news and mass of products to their personal needs and preferences, the possibility for
customization case studies. His companies to break brand loyalty through mass customization and the
most recent co-authored book influence of immediate availability, delivery time and price on the
was published in 2012: Projects customer’s willingness to take part in the co-creation process of products.
Handling and Clinical Risk
Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice (2013) 15, 20–35.
Management, Transferring
doi:10.1057/dddmp.2013.34
Theory to Operative Context.
Keywords: mass customization;
product personalisation; customer
survey; electronic commerce; mass
customization marketing
Introduction
Mass customization is the strategy to offer affordable goods and services
with a high variety of personalisation options. It finds its roots in basic
human needs:1,2 since humans found a way to satisfy basic physical needs,
attention has been redirected towards personalising products in order to
improve the personal utility of a product3 and to show personal status and
power. However, only the use of mass production and assembly line
technology for personalisation purposes4 made personalised products
available to a growing number of customers at a reasonable price. The cost
of a handmade personalised product is so remarkably high compared to the
price of the same product created through mass production that often its
appeal is minimal.
Paolo Coletti This is why today many customised products are mass-produced and
School of Economics and mass-customized, which means that customers enjoy the advantages of
Management,
Free University of Bozen Bolzano,
economies of scale together with a level of personalisation previously only
Universitätsplatz 1 — piazza possible with the craft of an artisan.
Università, 1, 39100 Cars are the typical example of a product that has undergone all these
Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Tel: +39 0471 011000 steps. The first cars built during the nineteenth century were almost entirely
Fax: +39 0471 011009 handmade, with large possibilities for personalisation due to very small

© 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice
www.palgrave-journals.com/dddmp/
 Customers’ online shopping preferences in mass customization

Customers enjoy the Table 1: Trend in product variety (number of models) for some products in the USA6
advantages of
Product 1970 1998 2012
economies of scale
together with Automobile models 140 260 684
personalisation Newspapers 339 790 >5,000
TV screens (size) 5 15 43
Movies (at the cinema) 267 458 1,410
Breakfast cereals 160 340 4,945
Types of milk 4 19 >50
Mouthwash 15 66 113
Sports shoes 5 285 3,371
Brands of mineral water 16 50 195
Types of tights 5 90 594

volumes. Then, at the turn of the century, mass-produced cars appeared,

such as the famous Ford Model T and Model A, with costs going
constantly down and demand going up. However, the most remarkable
feature of these cars was their omnipresent black colour without any
possible customer choice.5 Slowly, production became more flexible and,
starting with the choice of colours in the 1960s and engines in the 1970s,
by the 1980s a lot of customisation options were available to buyers. Now
a vast set of add-ons, variants and engines is available to every potential
buyer, even though customised cars are usually slightly more expensive
and their assembly and delivery still require more time compared to an
already produced and ready-to-sell model.
One of the main characteristics of modern economic systems is the rise
of product variety offered by enterprises. Analysing the US market from
1970 to 2012, for example, the increase in product variety can be seen in
Table 1.
The more the number of total variations increases, the less likely it is
that the potential customer will be able to find the preferred variation in
stock. Therefore, the customer who wants a personalised product must be
willing to wait longer. On the other hand, variation increases the possibility
to offer a product that best meets the customer’s specific preferences and
needs.
However, the wide variety offered to potential buyers is still not
mass customization. Only when the customer not only has the possibility
to choose among many variants, but also has the chance to customise
a product individually is mass customization achieved.7
At least one aspect of The concept of customisation can be explained by considering the
design, fabrication, operational activities of a generic manufacturing enterprise: design,
assembly or fabrication, assembly and distribution. A product can be defined as
distribution is carried customised when at least one of these operational activities is carried out
out according to according to the customer’s specifications.8 The level of customisation
customer’s depends on the technology used by the enterprise. Using modern
specifications computerisation and robotics, assembly-line technology has been
improved and has become more flexible in many ways. Computers and
information systems are crucial and a necessary pre-requisite for mass
customization, which enables the customer to take part in one or more

© 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice 21
 Aichner and Coletti

steps in the creation of a product. It is evident that customer preferences

should ideally be integrated in the entire design and production process,
even though this is rarely the case in practice.9
Moreover, effective mass customization means that the customer
cannot merely personalise the product, but can also gain the advantages
of economies of scale where price and delivery times are possibly
identical to those of a mass-produced product.10–13 This is not only
intrinsic to the concept definition, but also a necessary marketing feature
because customers are drawn to personalised products by the desire to
possess their self-designed object without paying the high price of craft
manufacturing. Price is therefore an essential part of the customer’s desire;
otherwise, the individual would turn towards traditional craftsmanship in
the event of mass-produced prices, which are too high. Moreover, when
the buyer is involved in the production process, either at the design
or assembly stage, he/she invests his/her time and competencies in this
task — an extra cost in terms of time on top of any other extra cost for
customisation.
Another important issue connected to extra costs is extra delivery time.
Standardised products, whether mass-produced or handmade, are available
immediately and customers have become used to zero waiting time. A
personalised product not only needs time for the buyer to express his/her
preferences, but might also require more time to be produced and to reach
its final destination. This issue must be seriously considered because while
for some products immediate availability is not strictly necessary for others
buyers might give up.

Mass customization in electronic commerce

Choice of the right The advent of the internet — and in particular the graphical, interactive
interface World Wide Web — marks an important turning point in mass
customization.14 Web interfaces are the ideal tool for a dialogue with the
potential customer, providing necessary information about the product and
collecting his/her preferences in a totally automatic way. This considerably
reduces the time and costs for the first step of the product’s customisation
and can turn the buyer’s work into a pleasant experience, which can further
induct the desire for a personalised object. In fact, the use of web-based
configurators is one major trend in mass customization.15
Therefore, the choice of the right interface is clearly a crucial one, since,
at the same time, it must be easy to use, complete and offer the user all the
possible choices, and with good default choices. An easy-to-use interface
avoids frustrating a non-expert customer and keeps him/her from judging
the personalisation task as being too difficult and thus leaving it. (There is
recent research on product configurators that self-adapt to different levels
of customer knowledge in order to reduce this risk.16) An interface must
also be complete, in the sense that it must present to the user all the
possibilities and each one with a clear indication of the impact on the final
result. This is usually achieved through a product picture that dynamically
changes when the customer changes parameters, even though this solution
works only for customisation in the assembly stage.

22 © 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice
 Customers’ online shopping preferences in mass customization

However, a too wide choice of configuration options may lead to an

‘overchoice-effect’17 and the customer might just give up. Thus, product
configurators must be programmed to help avoid this product variety
paradox,18 for example by hiding certain customisation options at early
customisation steps. Nevertheless, a high degree of freedom in terms of
design and decisional control over the process enhances the so-called
‘I designed it myself’ effect, which has a positive impact on the customer’s
perceived value purely from the fact that he/she designed the product.19
Dynamic display of Finally, the web interface must have default choices that speed up those
final result, maximum potential buyers who do not need deep personalisation or who do not have
freedom, default enough skill or time to go through all the possible options. Clearly, the
choices, complexity choice of these defaults must be very precise and possibly dynamically
dependant on user’s based on other individual customer’s preferences or choices obtained
expertise through user-profiling techniques. Aside from a functional and user-
friendly interface, additional online services such as visualisation and sales
person interaction increase customer intention to use online mass
customization.20
Choi et al.21 have suggested a three-dimensional model for electronic
commerce, which can be easily extended to electronic mass customization.
The three dimensions (see Figure 1) are the product dimension, which
states the physical or intangible aspects of the object, the player dimension,
which defines the way the buyer interacts with the producer, and the
process dimension, which distinguishes different ways for controlling the
production process. Kaplan and Haenlein9 use the example of a customised
newspaper: as long as it is printed on paper (physical product), assembled
with a direct interaction with the clerk (player process), based on user
preferences expressed to an employee (physical player), it is an example of
traditional mass customization. However, each of these three dimensions
can be digitalised: the preference-gathering process can be transferred to a
web interface, the assembling stage can be fully automated with the help of
an appropriate program, while the newspaper itself can become a digital
electronic newspaper.
For low-cost articles, Although most companies offer their products for a similar price as the
shipping and handling same, non-customisable products, there is one critical point in electronic
costs can be more than
the price of the article Pure eMC
itself Product eMC areas

Digital Traditional
MC
Process

Physical Digital
Physical
Physical Digital Player

Figure 1: Modified Choi, Stahl and Whinston model9

© 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice 23
 Aichner and Coletti

mass customization. As customised products have to be dispatched, the

customer has to add additional costs for shipping and handling. Especially
for low-cost articles, shipping and handling costs can be more than the
price of the article itself. Thus, it would be favourable for companies to
find inexpensive delivery solutions in the short run, since this represents
extra cost for the buyer and, as we have seen before, it is a crucial point for
effective mass customization. In the medium term, shipping and handling
must approximate zero.
There are currently many solutions that can be borrowed from standard
electronic commerce, which has exactly the same problems. Intensive co-
operation with dispatchers and with other companies is recommended. An
increasing number of available products will reduce costs, especially if
several orders can be combined together. Free shipping and handling is not
an impossible challenge, as the book industry shows.22,23 Another possible
solution is co-operation with existing shop chains, which have many points
of sale, possibly adding also local independent shops that can act simply as
distributors to this network, as is already done by many online companies
(for three different strategies, see chl.it, Wal-Mart’s in-store pick up and
vendornet.com).23,24 With this solution, shipping costs for the
manufacturer can be drastically reduced and, at the same time, customers
would have the advantage of personal dispatch from a face-to-face
reference person who represents the producer.

Survey
Sample and A survey was conducted with the aim of exploring the potential markets
methodology for personalised products from a customer’s point of view. The sample
consists of 561 European respondents aged 16 years or older. Particular
care has been taken in balancing male (50.8 per cent) with female subjects,
and students (25.3 per cent), who are probably more prone to new
technologies, with non-students. Concerning age distribution, the
questionnaire was submitted to people aged from 16 to 86 years with a
particular emphasis on young adults (median 28 years, mean 31.9,
standard deviation 12.0), since they are the ones who currently use most
online services and who will be the largest share of the consumer market in
terms of total expenses in the near future. Nationality of respondents is
strongly focused on the central European area, with Italy (69 per cent),
Austria (12 per cent) and Germany (8 per cent) having the largest
frequencies.
A staff of English-, German- and Italian-speaking assistants was trained
and put in charge of assisting respondents in filling in the questionnaire,
with clear instructions to interact only in case of problems in understanding
the questions and avoiding any possible suggestion. Each respondent was
allowed to choose whether to answer the questions in English, German or
Italian. Furthermore, all respondents read the questions and ticked the
answers by themselves. (The questionnaire can be found in the Appendix.)
Nike provided a live Since the questionnaire includes some jumps (e.g. for people who
example absolutely do not want to shop online), some answers in questions 5 and 11
are deliberately redundant to check previous answers and to prevent

24 © 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice
 Customers’ online shopping preferences in mass customization

subjects ending up in the wrong section feeling lost. Moreover, since some
questions involve product personalisation, the questionnaire provides a
brief explanation through a short text and, as an example, a picture of
Nike’s sneaker customisation website.
Preliminary questions on usage of the internet have been asked in order
to study possible relations between customisation attitude and internet
usage. This showed that 92 per cent of respondents have at least some
internet access, with the largest part at home or at work (78 per cent and
75 per cent, respectively). Male users display a significantly larger usage
of internet via mobile phones (26 per cent for male, 11 per cent for
female — chi-square 15.6 with significance 0.000) and, as we see in
the next section, this has an impact on online-shopping habits, but not
on customisation attitude.
Identifying four aspects Answers were analysed in order to search for results that may be
critical to web interesting for web marketing purposes, focusing in particular on these
marketing four key aspects:

1. price and availability as reasons for shopping online;

2. delivery time as a possible limit for personalised products;
3. brand fidelity as a barrier for the success of personalisation; and
4. an analysis of personalisation intention based on endogenous factors
(originating from within the sample).

Prices and availability The first topic of study for a successful marketing strategy on mass
customization is the reason why customers buy or do not buy online,
which leads to considerations that can be applied to product
personalisation via websites. The survey divides the subjects into two
groups: those who have already shopped online (48 per cent) and therefore
have experience and a clear idea of its characteristics, and those who have
never had the chance to shop online, among whom 14 per cent declare
having no intention of doing it in the future. The most important reason
that has pushed customers to buy or which might push them to buy in the
future is price: it is the main reason to do it for online buyers (65 per cent)
and a reduction to half price — not so rare in many online shops — is able
to make 25 per cent of the non-online buyers change their attitude.
Price is the main Thus, price is the first element that mass customization websites must
source of customers’ keep under control, since it is the main source of customers’ attraction. A
attraction price increase might drive both old and potential new customers back to
traditional shops or, at least, to non-customisable products. This is also
confirmed by other studies,25,26 which examine the demand curve for
consumers and its price flexibility.
The second aspect that pushes customers to shop online is product
availability. There are many examples of products that are not easily
found in small, traditional shops, especially concerning large product
variety. Availability is in fact the second driver for online buyers
(52 per cent), while the percentage of non-online buyers who may be
convinced to change their habits by availability is only 19 per cent.
This is a surprising result, considering that it implies that the remaining
81 per cent of non-online buyers would prefer not to buy the product at all.

© 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice 25
 Aichner and Coletti

Probably it is due to the fact that they do not have experience of the wide
range of products available on the internet and therefore have never seen
the reduced number of products of traditional shops as a limitation. A
similar effect can also be observed in the next section.
Products that cannot The impact of availability, even in a reduced form for non-online
be personalised by buyers, is another aspect that must therefore be carefully considered when
traditional shops build planning a mass customization online shop. Offering products — and
loyalty especially personalisation — which cannot be offered by traditional
shops will bind many customers to personalised products, since they
will start to see the limitations of the low range in traditional shops.
Availability is a crucial point for a mass customization towards
online buyers since people who shop online for a larger product
availability have expressed a significantly stronger positive decision
(chi-square 8.8 with significance 0.032) when asked for their
personalisation intention, as can be seen from Table 2.
Personalisation A direct question was posed to the respondent as to whether he/she
intention would like to personalise products, after a brief description of online
mass customization and a brief example using Nike’s website. This
gave a result of 43 per cent yes, 39 per cent probably yes, 10 per cent
probably no and 8 per cent no. Thus, the large majority of subjects want,
or probably want, to personalise. These percentages are calculated
on people who have an internet connection and who have at least
a minor interest in shopping online in the future. Online customers are
generally sensitive to personalisation and prefer online shops that offer
personalisation services.27 In this light, the result is even more interesting,
since it clearly demonstrates that consumers with some experience on the
internet are ready to switch from online shops to mass customization
online shops, provided that products are offered with the constraints on
price and delivery times illustrated in previous sections.
Having a large experience with online shopping already increases
significantly (chi-square 16.2 with significance 0.001) the desire to try out
personalised products, as can be seen in Table 3. This effect is similar to
the one in the previous section, where people with a large experience have
a much clearer idea of the advantages of the buying process. In addition, it
is probably influenced by previous positive experiences, which results in
a higher willingness to try new features.
Personalisation Even though male respondents are usually more in favour of shopping
intention does not online than their female counterparts, the personalisation intention does
depend on gender
Table 2: Distribution of personalisation intentions by shopping because of availability

Would like to personalise Shop online because product is not Shop online for other reasons
available in traditional shops

Frequency Percentage (%) Frequency Percentage (%)

Yes 122 49 79 36
Probably yes 85 34 100 45
Probably no 24 9 25 11
No 19 8 17 8

26 © 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice
 Customers’ online shopping preferences in mass customization

Table 3: Distribution of personalisation intention by internet use for online shopping

Would like to personalise Use of internet for online shopping Use of internet for other reasons

Frequency Percentage (%) Frequency Percentage (%)

Yes 121 50 80 35
Probably yes 88 37 97 42
Probably no 22 9 27 12
No 10 4 26 11

70

60

50
Age

40

30

20

10
Yes Probably Probably No
yes no
Would like to personalize

Figure 2: Distribution of age by personalisation intention

not show significant (chi-square 1.9 with significance 0.585)

dependence on sex. This result is a clear indication that, while
internet and online shopping remain traditionally male-dominated
fields, female consumers represent an already mature potential
source for customers.
On the other hand, age does play a major role in the personalisation
intention. As can be seen in Figure 2, people who do not want to
personalise are slightly older (Kruskal–Wallis test for equality of
distributions 16.2 with significance 0.001; Jonckheere–Terpstra test
for order of distributions 41,212 with significance 0.000) than those
most committed to personalisation, even though there are still
some young people who absolutely do not want to personalise.
Older consumers could This is an expected result, since younger people are the typical online
be driven to mass shoppers. However, if we restrict the analysis to those subjects who do
customization websites not use the internet for online shopping, therefore concentrating on the
without passing future potential buyers, age does not remain significant anymore. This
through traditional result indicates that older consumers could be driven to mass
web shops customization websites directly without passing through web shops that do
not offer personalisation of products.
Time is another crucial factor that influences customers’ attitude
towards mass customization. As it is evident, an over-long production
time combined with the extra delivery time that is typical for internet

© 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice 27
 Aichner and Coletti

shopping can keep many potential customers from buying online, as

well as from trying out online mass customization.
Waiting time tolerance The survey asked respondents to consider the last item bought on
for personalised the internet and the last item bought in a traditional shop for more than
products ten euro and checked his/her tolerance on waiting time in the case of
product personalisation. The answers clearly have a large variance since
they depend strongly on the individual product considered by the subject:
for example, for an immediate consumption product, such as food, no
waiting time is usually tolerated, while for gifts a larger waiting time
is tolerated.
The fact that 16 per cent and 21 per cent of respondents (last item bought
on the internet and in a traditional shop, respectively) are ready to wait up
to seven days for a personalised product has to be considered a very good
result since seven days is a rather long waiting time. This duration allows
automated production lines to make the personalised product and even
ship it to destination. Further, 14 per cent of people who bought their last
item in a traditional shop are willing to add one day of waiting time if
personalisation is offered. As one day does not allow for shipping but
only for personalisation, these customers might not be willing to change
from a traditional to an online shop, even though they are in favour
of product personalisation. Another 13 per cent of people who bought
their last item in an online shop are ready to add one extra day of waiting
time. This means that online shops offering product personalisation can
plan to use this extra time completely for the personalisation process
because shipping time is already included in their order-to-delivery
period.
Personalisation time As shown in Table 4, the majority of people who would personalise
must be kept short in the last product bought (35 per cent in a traditional shop and 33 per cent
order to save time for online) want the product to be available with no added waiting time,
delivery meaning immediately for people who bought it in a traditional shop
and with the same waiting time as for the original product for people
who bought the product online. Thus, to satisfy all potential customers
companies will have to optimise their operations in order to be able
to find the extra time necessary to customise the product without
requiring their customers to wait longer than usually.
This seems to be a highly challenging task for traditional shops
because people want to take the product away immediately. Online
shops have more alternatives to fulfil the customer’s expectations. First,

Table 4: Distribution of waiting time for last bought item in traditional shops and in online shop

Would you personalise the last Traditional shop Online shop

product you bought?
Frequency Percentage (%) Frequency Percentage (%)

Yes, if available immediately 188 35 101 33

Yes, if available after one day 73 14 40 13
Yes, if available after seven days 83 16 65 21
No 186 35 102 33

28 © 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice
 Customers’ online shopping preferences in mass customization

they can improve the production process in order to allow for the extra
time necessary for customisation. Second, if the production process
cannot be optimised, they can improve shipping, for example by using
more sophisticated IT systems or by choosing a faster parcel service.
These results place another condition on successful mass customization
implementation: personalisation time must be kept as short as possible
in order to be able to deliver the final product to the customer according
to his/her personal preferences. As many customers are not willing to
wait any longer than usual, for some products personalisation must be
an immediate operation, without adding any extra waiting time. This
is also confirmed by the previously mentioned studies,25,26 which
also examined the customer’s demand curve flexibility towards delivery
time and also proposed a framework for a negotiation between company
and customer to reach the equilibrium point that the customer deems as
sufficient.
Brand loyalty as a Brand loyalty is one of the best-known marketing strategies used to
barrier to entry keep customers. For innovative products, such as personalised products,
it can represent a strong entry barrier for many markets. Moreover, the
interest and especially ability to personalise changes strongly with product
familiarity28 and this can represent a further incentive or disincentive
towards investing time in customisation.
In order to check which might potentially be open markets, the
willingness to change brand in exchange for personalisation was asked
to the survey’s respondents. Since brand loyalty depends strongly on the
product category, especially for electronic commerce,29 the question was
split into seven different categories: footwear, clothing, sports equipment,
computers, dinnerware, toys and gifts. It is important to underline that this
question is under the hypothesis of identical price and identical quality, to
restrict the result on brand loyalty and eliminate the effect of well-known
or low-cost brands.
Brand switching differs As shown in Table 5, the percentage of people willing to change brand
by product type for the opportunity to personalise the product ranges from 50 per cent to
74 per cent, suggesting that at least half of brand loyalty can be broken
by mass customization companies provided price and quality remain the
same. The two lowest percentages are for dinnerware (50 per cent) and
toys (50 per cent), two categories for which people probably do not deem
personalisation as so important. The percentage rises to almost 74 per cent

Table 5: Brand change intention when personalisation is offered

Would you abandon your old brand for Female (%) Male (%) Total (%)
a personalised product? ‘Yes’ answers

Computer 50 59 55
Dinnerware 56 43 50
Footwear 63 58 60
Clothing 71 66 68
Sports equipment 52 53 53
Toys 54 48 50
Presents 77 71 74

© 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice 29
 Aichner and Coletti

for gifts, where brands are not so important and where personalisation
especially can give a very large plus to the product. This result is also
emphasised by another study,30 which distinguishes the categories that
present conformity from those that present counter-conformity, where
clearly customisation becomes much more interesting from the customer’s
point of view.
When distinguishing between female and male respondents, female
subjects display a significantly (chi-square 4.4 with significance 0.041)
smaller preference only for computers and a significantly (chi-square
8.3 with significance 0.005) larger preference for dinnerware, two sectors
where typically men and women have different needs and different
perspectives.
Good opportunities for The analysis of brand loyalty displays that there are good opportunities
market penetration for market penetration in all the sectors, but it is necessary to target the
marketing strategies, specifically to the type of product and, for some
types, to the customer’s gender since brand loyalty can vary a lot.

Conclusions
Mass customization as By offering customisable products in a mass production environment,
a route to customer companies expect to realise significant competitive advantage through
value the generation of enduring customer value.31–33 This is attempted by
offering the customer a possibly unlimited number of choices to customise
a certain product according to his/her individual needs.
Both existing literature and this investigation highlighted two important
aspects that influence the customer’s choice on whether to rely on a certain
company to buy a customised product or not: price and waiting time.
Despite the willingness of customers to pay significantly more for self-
designed versus off-the-shelf-products,31,34,35 various studies determine
implicitly the fundamental goal of achieving mass customization
products at the same price or a marginal higher price as mass-produced
products,36,9 as well as this study does.
As shown in the previous section, waiting time plays a crucial role in the
willingness to use product customisation offers and should be a signal to
companies that are offering mass customization not just to concentrate on
price equality, but to optimise information and physical flow in order to
reduce production and delivery time to a minimum. This can increase
operational efficiency decisively.
High demand for The result of our survey underlines that there is a high demand for
personalised products personalised products. This finding is supported by the fact that 52 per cent
of respondents say that they do or intend to shop online because of
unavailability of the product in a traditional shop. Furthermore, a total of
19 per cent of people who explicitly responded that they neither shop nor
intend to shop online in the future would shop online if the product was
not available in a traditional shop (see Table 2). These numbers gain in
importance by taking into account the negative factors associated with mass
customization and online shopping, which include the multifaceted perceived
risk when purchasing a customised product,37 the payment of a price
premium, the acceptance of waiting time and the time and effort involved.26

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 Customers’ online shopping preferences in mass customization

Branding products no longer guarantees loyal customers because tried-

and-true marketing techniques from the past no longer work for most
products — particularly for complex ones based on new technologies.38
On the one hand, mass customization is a promising strategy to improve
a company’s relationship with its customers,39,40 which might reward
mass customization companies with increased loyalty in exchange for
the better fit between the self-designed product and individual
preferences.41,42 This implies that, on the other hand, customers might
be willing to change brand if another company offers a similar product
with identical price and identical quality combined with the possibility
to customise the product.
Shops will serve little At present, traditional shops where finished goods are stored are the
purpose in the future main sales platforms for mass-produced goods. Potential customers enter
of mass customized the store and choose among a limited number of displayed products.
products. Despite an increasing product variety (see Table 1), the choice is limited
due to the limited exhibition and storage space of a store. In spite of the
findings of this investigation, shops will serve little purpose in the future
of marketing mass customized products for the following reasons:

● of the total survey respondents, 36 per cent are willing to use

customisation in traditional stores only if the product is available
immediately (see Table 4). At present, this seems to be a hardly
realisable challenge;
● customers would have to come back a second time to the store after a
certain period of time. This is connected to both an investment in time
and additional costs, for example bus ticket or car park charges; and
● traditional shops would have to provide digital equipment to the
customers in order to allow them to personalise the product using a
consumer-friendly interface. Further, the order must be digital to be able
to forward it to the production plant instantly. A delay at this point would
result in a further competitive disadvantage compared to online mass
customization.

Finally, 67 per cent of survey respondents of the conducted

investigation state that they would rather have bought the last product they
bought online on a website that offers the possibility to personalise the
product than on the original website, 33 per cent are not willing to accept
additional waiting time, whereas 34 per cent would accept slower delivery
time (see Table 4).
It is the mass customization companies’ responsibility to use cost savings
based on the omission of an obsolete traditional retail network to optimise
internal communication in order to start the manufacturing process as swiftly
as possible. In this way, both the need for personalisation and the desire of
customers not to add waiting time can be satisfied.

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 Aichner and Coletti

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 Aichner and Coletti

Appendix
Questionnaire

(1) Name (optional), nationality, residence

(2) Age
(3) Sex
(4) Occupation: student, employed, other (one answer)
(5) Use of internet: (one answer per category)

● at home: yes, in the future, no

● at work/university: yes, in the future, no
● at internet café: yes, in the future, no
● at mobile phone: yes, in the future, no
If you ticked ‘no’ four times, please continue with question 12.

(6) What are you using internet for: to surf, to chat or write e-mails, to
book a hotel or a holiday, for online shopping, for online banking, I
have not used internet yet (several answers)
(7) Please tick what applies to you: I shop online, I intend to shop online
in the future, I may shop online in the future, I will never shop online
(one answer)
(8) If you ticked ‘I will never shop online’, would you shop in at least
one of the following cases? If the product were to cost more than 50
per cent less than in a traditional shop, if the product were not
available in a traditional shop, no, I would never shop online (one
answer)
If you ticked ‘no, I would never shop online’, please continue with
question 12.
(9) Why do you shop online or intend to shop online in the future? for
convenience, for low prices, to try out new technologies, because I
am not able to find the product in a traditional shop (several answers)
mass customization describes the operation of personalising, nor-
mally online, a product. This individual personalisation happens step
by step via a simple user interface within a few minutes. Customers
can individually design the product according to their individual
conception by choosing colour, size, writing, pattern, logos, material
and so on. The price of such a personalised product corresponds to
the price of a traditional, non-personalised, product that can be
bought in a traditional shop (picture of personalisation of shoes
through Nike website follows)
(10) Would you like to personalise a product online, that is individually
choose colour, size, writing, pattern, logos, material and so on? Yes,
probably yes, probably no, no (one answer)
(11) Would you prefer to buy the product of a company that offers mass
customization rather than of a company that does not offer mass
customization? yes, I would prefer to buy the product of a company
that offers mass customization, no, I would prefer to buy the product
of a company that does not offer mass customization (one answer)

34 © 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice
 Customers’ online shopping preferences in mass customization

(12) Referring to the last product you bought online: Would you rather
have bought the product on a website that offers you the possibility to
personalise the product than on the original website? I have not
shopped online yet, yes with identical delivery time, yes if the
delivery time were no longer than one additional day, yes if the
delivery time were no longer than seven additional days, no I would
have bought the product anyway at the original website (one answer)
(13) Referring to the last product you bought in a traditional shop for more
than 10 euro/15 dollars, would you rather have bought the product in
a shop that offers you the possibility to personalise the product than
in the original shop? yes, if the product were available immediately,
yes if the product were available after one day, yes if the product
were available after seven days, no I would have bought the product
anyway in the original shop (one answer)
(14) If you could find a similar product (identical price and identical
quality) of a brand that offers personalisation, would you abandon
your old brand and change? (one answer per category)

● footwear: yes change, no not change

● clothing: yes change, no not change
● sports equipment: yes change, no not change
● computers: yes change, no not change
● dinnerware: yes change, no not change
● toys: yes change, no not change
● presents: yes change, no not change

© 2013 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. 1746-0166 VOL. 15 NO. 1 PP 20–35. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice 35

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