Re: Custom Products

I found this article on mass customization, which breaks it down into four categories: Transparent, Collaborative, Adaptive, and Cosmetic. Here are the definitions of each:

1. Collaborative Customization - where companies work in partnership with individual customers to develop precise product offerings to best suit each customer's needs.

2. Adaptive Customization - where companies produce standardized products that are customizable by the end-user.

3. Transparent Customization - where companies provide unique products to individual customers without overtly stating the products are customized.

4. Cosmetic Customization - where companies produce standardized products but market the products in different ways to various customers.

Another article from Huffington Post Business gives three reasons why mass customization is the future of consumer products:

1. Every Customer Is Their Own Market

2. Consumers Are More Expressive

3. Customization Is the New Loyalty

But enough about the business aspect. The only time I can remember being interested in mass customization products for the design was my senior year of high school when I was looking for laptop cases. I'm not sure if Apple was responsible for this or I was looking at another site, but I spent hours messing around with options just to end up buying a standard case for cost reasons. Apple also gives the option to customize their products by engraving your name. The only time I've been interested in this was when it was free with the purchase.

I've heard a lot about Nike taking advantage of this. They've created an entire campaign around it called Nike ID. Again, I've never really been interested in personalized anything, especially shoes, but I can understand why it's been so successful.