At the end of week 3 of the seminar Consumer Channel Dynamics, we all know that more and more customers are involved in the value creation of a product. Consumers have more options than ever before. This variety of choices gives the consumer a better chance of finding something that fits its needs, personalities etc. But, as in any case, there are possible advantages but also some downsides. In the book ‘The Paradox of Choice: why more is less’ of Barry Schwartz (see the blog of Dimitris) you can read that the choices can be overwhelming. While reading all blogs, I discovered that the fact of ‘more choice for the customer’ is an issue frequently talked about. Will a lot of choice make a customer happy or will it confuse or frustrate a customer?

According to Barry Schwarts, the latter is the case. But, as I was searching on the internet for some more arguments pro or against the more choices, I found an article of Femke Kools which describes a research of Benedict Dellaert and Stefan Stremersch. This article shows that more choices do not have to be a problem for the customer. You can read the article through the following link:

http://www.unimaas.nl/researchmagazine/default.asp?id=115&thema=2&template=thema.html&taal=nl

As it is written in Dutch, I will further describe the main conclusions.

Except for mass products, companies nowadays also offer customized products. Pants, shoes, computers: as a consumer you can indicate your preference for every component and the company will make the product exactly as you want. This does not have to be a more expensive production method, so mass customization offers advantages to both consumers and companies. A possible downside is that the customer gets confused about the many choices and is not able to get the product he/she wants. Prof. Benedict Dellaert investigated with prof. Stefan Stremersch what the limits of mass customization are. The most important question of the research was: If you decide to offer mass customization, how do you make it as attractive as possible for the consumer?  Variation is possible in the number of choices you offer. It turned out that consumers can handle the choices well.  “It does not influence the difficulty which consumers experience. Other factors will”, according to Delleart. The mass customization process gets more easy if you see one price at the end of the choice process. If the customer sees a price for every component it chooses, he/she thinks the process is more difficult.  A possible reason for this according to the investigators: the customer thinks he/she has to do something with all the extra information. People which are familiar with the product are less affected by this issue.
There is also variation possible in the number of options offered. According to Delleart, also the number of options offered has not an effect on the experienced difficulty. What does turned out, is that it is attractive for the consumer if the options stay close to the mean.  Very often is the mean already shown in the list of choices. If you want to deviate, you actively have to choose another option. “People are most satisfied about the process and the product if they have the option to upgrade.  So manufacturers can better set the default at a basis level than at a more advanced level. This also reduces the chance that the customer buys a more advanced product than needed.

Although this article is written in 2005, I still find it interesting to also read something about the contradiction to the fact that more choices will confuse the customer. I hope you will do too!

Larissa Geitenbeek

I came across the following wikipedia page which I find interesting. It is on Prosumers. Which is a contraction of the words professional/producer and consumer. It pretty much distinguishes between the passive consumer and the active consumer.

General meanings

• The term was coined by futurologist Alvin Toffler in 1980 and that meaning is not commonly used today. Loosely, Toffler’s “proactive consumer” prosumers were common consumers who were predicted to each become active to help personally improve or design the goods and services of the marketplace, transforming it and their roles as consumers. Toffler is discussed in depth below.
• By far the most common usage of the term describes the consumers, enthusiasts who buy products (almost always technical) that fall between professional and consumer grade standards in quality, complexity, or functionality. Prosumer also commonly refers to those products. Semiprofessional. “Prosumer” is a well-accepted category for camcorders, digital cameras, VCRs, “and other video playthings.” These advanced product features and higher prosumer expectations lend themselves to increased customizing in Toffler’s product-improvement sense. Continue reading Prosumer →

Do you have a social network account? then you are already involving a business…

More and more brands are assigning for brand communities like Facebook, Ning, Twitter etc. but what are the results? If the results of brand communities aren’t that effective for your brand maybe you should consider reading this article. How can I commit more customers to my brand and provide more brand loyalty? Based on the following article;

The Influence of On-Line Brand Community Characteristics on Community Commitment and Brand Loyalty, Heehyoung Jang, Lorne Olfman, Ilsang Ko, Joon Koh, and Kyungtae Kim

The Influence of On-line Brand Community Characteristics

Pim Steine

Hello all,

I found this article about mass customization and though it might be interesting and helpful. Please click on the link to read it. http://blogs.forrester.com/jp_gownder/11-04-15-mass_customization_is_finally_the_future_of_products
It’s also nice to read what other people though of this article.

The most important thing about this article is that mass customization has always been under construction. Since 1977 it has been an idea but many companies failed to succeed in the strategy of mass customization, or implemented it all wrong.

In my opinion this is the time that mass custimization really comes through and companies have the knowledge to implement this strategy right so it will succeed. Examples of companies that have implemented the strategy just right are: Nike, Spreadshirt, Ponoko and Zazzle.

Also check this link for another interesting opinion. http://m.readwriteweb.com/biz/2011/04/user-customized-products-future-of-business.php

Robin van Zeijl

I found this really interesting post and thought that it would be a great idea to share it with you since it is so in line with the content of the “Consumer Channel Dynamics” Seminar. I hope you will also find it interesting and enjoy! It shows that customer co-creation is important not only during the product’s designing but mostly during the every day life, when the product is actually used by consumers. It is during the every-day life that customer co-creation gives value to the customer himself!

http://www.customerthink.com/blog/how_customer_co_creation_is_the_future_of_business

Kind Regards

Fay Panagopoulou