First of all, in a certain sense, it has.  From a consumer point of view, outfits are extremely customizable.  When we put together outfits we mix and match different articles of clothing in various combination’s to suit our needs for the day.  Outfits fundamentally have a modular architecture: shirts, pants, shoes, jackets, etc.  The components are interchangeable and we have millions of components to choose from. People often reference cars and computers as examples of mass customization being successful – but the internal components are not “custom” – it is just the combination/configuration that is unique.  In this sense, our outfits have always been “mass-customized”.

Historically, for a product to be mass customized, it requires a modular architecture in which the individual components can be produced cheaply.  The components can than be combined in different configurations to offer a mass customized solution.

Modular solutions are generally cheaper because more elements are mass produced, but performance is limited by the internal interfaces.  Fully integrated systems generally have higher performance (not limited by standardized internal interfaces, but cost more because the system is more expensive to produce.

For the most part, garments have not developed modular architectures – and for good reason.  It would be impossible to standardize the interfaces between different components of all evening gowns in a way that allowed for mass production of different components of the gown, while still providing the performance (style) demanded by customers.  The fun of fashion is often in how the different pieces come together – the interfaces themselves – and you can’t standardize fashion.

However, in some cases modularity and standardized interfaces is possible: Custom t-shirt companies separate the actual shirt from the graphic on the front.  The interface is standardized, so that they can combine any graphic with any size and color of shirt.  Custom dress shirt companies standardize the interfaces between a dress shirt’s collar, body and cuffs allowing for various combination’s in this manner.  This is partly made possible with T-shirts and dress shirts by the styles not changing as quickly as the rest of fashion.  Colors may change, but the fundamental architecture of the garment does not.  Quickly changing fashion trends may prevent this from occurring for other garments.

The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz

is a worthwhile, albeit slightly depressing book.  Schwartz does an excellent job of demonstrating that today we (especially Americans) have infinite choices before us.  We can choose from a variety of career paths, we can live in different cities, we can eat various foods, we can buy different products, we can date different people… on and on, you get the idea.  Schwartz also presents various statistics (suicide rates, diagnosed depressions, medications) suggesting that, we are (in general) less happy.  He suggests causation with the following rationale:

1. Making good choices is just plain hard (imperfect, constantly changing information).
2. We spend so much time researching choices that we’re too busy for our families and things that matter.
3. We are constantly stressed out about choices because we don’t want to miss opportunities (we want them all).
4. After making a choice we fantasize about how much better life would have been if we had chosen the alternative (regret).
5. After doing all the research to select the best option our expectations of the result become so high that reality can not deliver (disappointment).
6. Once we’ve made our choice, we constantly compare our choices to others and try to analyze who made a better choice.

Throughout the book is the theme that there are two types of people: maximizers and satisfiers.

Maximizers always try to make the “best” decisions and satisficers try to make decisions that are “good enough”. The ironic result is that maximizers tend to be more successful and satisficers tend to be more happy.

Most of us are somewhere in the middle, or behave as one or the other depending on the choice being considered.  I think the book is a worthwhile read for this point.  You might find some personal insight into your own quality of life!

If more choice = less happiness and mass-customization = lots more choice, it follows logically that mass-customization = lots less happiness.

And there are plenty of failed mass-customization efforts to cite.  Just see Proctor and Gamble’s “Reflect”, Cannondale, or Levi’s Personal Pair.  However, a little research will show is that many of these “failures” or “discontinuations” weren’t because consumers didn’t like the choice.  For example, Levi’s ended the Personal Pair effort because it caused sales channel conflicts – other efforts had trouble manufacturing custom products and staying competitive.

Points from PoC that support the case for mass-customization

We are naturally drawn to choice

The fact is, most of us want more choices – even if they make us less happy.  As Schwartz says, “65% of people not diagnosed with cancer say they would want to choose the treatment if they were diagnosed”.  We crave freedom and individuality whether it is good for us or not.  Mass-customization offerings are thus a natural draw to potential customers and should be able to easily get customer attention.

Whether we like it or not, we are already faced with infinite choices

Suppose you are an ecommerce company selling coffee makers.  According to Schwartz’s advice, offering fewer coffee makers on your website would increase your sales.  This might have worked 10 years ago in department stores, but today, when customers are looking at your coffee maker website, you can bet they have multiple browser tabs open to your competitors websites as well.  Putting less products on your digital store shelves only decreases the likelihood you will be offering what the customer is looking for (for more analysis on this point refer to Chris Anderson’s “Long Tail” discussion of Amazon.com).

PoC ideas to improve a mass-customization strategy

Provide salient information that help users make the right choices

The flip side of the above cancer treatment statistic is that “88% of people actually diagnosed with cancer did not want to choose their treatment”.  The unhappiness of choice comes when the stakes are high and the correct choice isn’t clear.  To help mitigate this, provide either a live person or a digital wizard to (1) provide an “experts” recommendation for the customers needs and (2) ease the customer’s mind that the stakes are not as high as they think (which is true for most buying choices).  When personal attention is not feasible (most ecommerce), it is critical to integrate easy to navigate and relevant information.   User interface designs such as Zafu that make recommendations after a customer answers several intuitive questions seem to work especially well.  MyShape, HisCatalog and Yelp also offer user interfaces that work well for helping customers make buying decisions. These strategies should be applied to mass-customization offerings as well.

Focus on offerings that provide real utility – not just aesthetics

Frank Piller once mentioned that this is the key success driver in mass-customization companies.   The paradox of choice psychology provides a good explanation why.  If your mass customization provides a product with a superior fit (such as custom orthopedic shoes), the choice becomes easier to make because you just choose “perfect fit”.  Real utility implies that there is a correct answer, not a subjective opinion.  It might be complicated and it might require domain expertise or a better understanding of your personal situation, but with the right information it will be an easy choice.  Conversely, aesthetic choices can be unclear.  For example, choosing between 100 shades of pink could be a subjective choice – thus a very hard decision to make.

If you find the topic interesting (and don’t mind a $2000 conference price tag) come to the First Annual MIT Smart Customization Seminar November 10th and 11th, where I will be discussing my mass-customization start up Proper Cloth.