TY - JOUR
T1 - Contingent Response to Self-Customization Procedures
T2 - Implications for Decision Satisfaction and Choice
AU - Valenzuela, Ana
AU - Dhar, Ravi
AU - Zettelmeyer, Florian
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by grants from the Marketing Science Institute (Grant No. 4-1227) and the Affirmative Action Office at San Francisco State University. This article benefited from the helpful comments of Itamar Simonson, Tom Kramer, Kalpesh Desai, and the anonymous JMR reviewers. The authors also thank Pagepoint Web Solutions, Judy Strebel, Chrissy Mitakakis, and Maneesh Thakkar for their help during data collection. Mita Sujan served as guest editor for this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2009 American Marketing Association.
PY - 2009/12
Y1 - 2009/12
N2 - Self-customization is the process by which consumers seek to customize offerings to their own preferences. In this article, the authors propose that differences in self-customization procedures potentially influence (1) the product configuration favored, (2) the degree of decision difficulty in product customization, (3) the degree of satisfaction with the customized option, and (4) the degree of willingness to purchase. The authors examine these propositions in a series of studies that allow self-customization through the use of either a by-attribute or a by-alternative method. They show that consumers tend to choose an intermediate (compromise) option significantly more often when they customize a product using the by-attribute method than when using the by-alternative method. In addition, the by-attribute customization procedure leads to a lower level of experienced difficulty greater satisfaction, and higher willingness to purchase the customized option than the by-alternative method. Finally the decrease in experienced difficulty in the by-attribute customization method is not solely due to the reduction in information consideration but also due to less explicit trade-offs among competing characteristics. These results can aid marketing managers in designing mass-customization procedures.
AB - Self-customization is the process by which consumers seek to customize offerings to their own preferences. In this article, the authors propose that differences in self-customization procedures potentially influence (1) the product configuration favored, (2) the degree of decision difficulty in product customization, (3) the degree of satisfaction with the customized option, and (4) the degree of willingness to purchase. The authors examine these propositions in a series of studies that allow self-customization through the use of either a by-attribute or a by-alternative method. They show that consumers tend to choose an intermediate (compromise) option significantly more often when they customize a product using the by-attribute method than when using the by-alternative method. In addition, the by-attribute customization procedure leads to a lower level of experienced difficulty greater satisfaction, and higher willingness to purchase the customized option than the by-alternative method. Finally the decrease in experienced difficulty in the by-attribute customization method is not solely due to the reduction in information consideration but also due to less explicit trade-offs among competing characteristics. These results can aid marketing managers in designing mass-customization procedures.
KW - customization procedures
KW - decision difficulty
KW - product self-customization
KW - satisfaction
KW - willingness to purchase
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U2 - 10.1509/jmkr.46.6.754_JMR6D
DO - 10.1509/jmkr.46.6.754_JMR6D
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85107930666
SN - 0022-2437
VL - 46
SP - 754
EP - 763
JO - Journal of Marketing Research
JF - Journal of Marketing Research
IS - 6
ER -