Tell Me What You Wish: How Pre-Configurations BasedOn Preference Articulation Affect Consumer Product Configuration Processes.

Mass customization is ubiquitous and various industries offer customizable products to their consumers. However, consumers often fail to customize products that they identify with and that meet their idiosyncratic preferences best. This research work proposes a novel customization architecture – preference based customization – which provides a consumer initial customized products that come close to her/his preferences. Empirical evidence from seven studies, including field and laboratory experiments across multiple product domains, demonstrate the effectiveness (i.e., increased choice confidence and willingness to buy) of preference based customization architectures relative to standard attribute-by-attribute customization architectures.