|
On-line Customization: A Key Business Opportunity Online customization gives consumers the opportunity to choose characteristics they want in a product when they shop for it online. Many companies are looking at online customization as the future of online business. Janis Crow, Kansas State University marketing instructor, researched how people make choices on the Internet. She recently studied consumers in an online environment and their ability to customize several products -- pizza, shoes, and electronic devices. Crow said that her study posed two questions for respondents: first, how difficult is it to customize a product, and secondly, how likely is the person to purchase the product he or she has customized?
She created a website where people could customize products to their individual preferences and needs. Crow selected three generic products: pizza, shoes, and a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). Thirty-one college students took part in the study. "Students could customize the three products, and I provided a drop-down box on the site with attributes to choose from," she explained. Consumers could click on a drop-down box to customize a product they would want to purchase, she said. She found that more people relied on the default choices rather than selecting other choices that were offered. She said, some research suggests that many people do not want to put a lot of effort into purchase decisions. "A lot of times, people may not have preferences already in mind," she said. When consumers have the chance to create preferences, the question is whether they rely on previous preferences or if they develop new ones, she said. In the future, Crow says she will be studying strategies that consumers go through during purchase decisions. "I will be studying decision processes to develop computer aids that could help the consumer reach their purchase decision," she said. Although her current project involves analyzing the consumer behavior of college students in an online environment, in future projects she plans to analyze other demographic groups. "Customization will be a key business opportunity in the future for businesses online or in more typical shopping environments," Crow said. She hopes her research will help consumers in making purchase decisions and help businesses determine products to offer and how to offer them.
Story prepared by Jordan McLain
|
