EXPRESS: Customization and the Customer Journey

Retailers frequently offer customers the opportunity to customize in addition to buying ready-made products. Although prior research shows that customization can increase product evaluations, purchase intent, and willingness to pay, customers often do not opt into customization. Using a multi-method approach, we resolve this discrepancy by demonstrating that the Customization Journey is dynamic rather than static: an initial customization experience has a lasting impact on the customer journey. Nine years of transaction data from a retailer shows that customers who customize at least one product are more likely to customize again with the retailer; they also spend more, visit more often, and buy more items. Next, we conduct a series of longitudinal experimental studies. By randomly assigning some participants to customize and others to choose among a matched set of products, we disentangle the effects of the customer’s inherent preference for customizing from their experience with customization. We find that an initial experience with customization significantly increases the subsequent likelihood of customization, leading to more favorable outcomes for both the customer and the retailer. Our findings suggest that customizers need not be “born”—they can be “created” via interventions designed to increase experience with customization, shaping the trajectories of customer journeys.