Exploring the Customization Decision Support System Using Waypoint Solutions

Product customization has been popular since Internet shopping began. Many firms have introduced customization configuration systems, allowing customers to choose a wide range of product attributes, attracting them to participate in the shopping process, and increasing customer satisfaction. Paradoxically, the attribute-by-attribute (AbA) choice in the customization process requires a high-information processing load resulting in shopper confusion. To reduce this confusion, the CvSS (customization via starting solution) system has recently been developed. However, this system provides solution support only for the starting point of the configuration process. Thus, in this study, the authors proposes the CvWS (Customization via Waypoint Solutions) system, which would greatly reduce the customer effort needed to complete the configuration process by using a novel approach to solve the nonlinear knapsack problem. The newly proposed system is theoretically compared with the AbA customization as well as the CvSS system. Also, its feasibility is discussed in the context of the nonlinear multiconstraint knapsack problem.