Case Study: Mass Customization

Dying are the days of mass-produced consumer goods. The future is not about a required set and combination of colors, materials, scents, sounds, shapes and accessories. Consumers yearn for products that broadcast their identity and individuality and cater to their needs and desires.

For example, if I want a Volkswagen Eos (and I really, really do) I can dictate its color (thunder blue), interior (cornsilk beige), transmission (automatic) and various electronic accessories (iPod jack is a must). If I want a stuffed animal I can go to Build-A-Bear and choose the animal (Scruffy Puppy), its sound (I can make the dog meow if I so desire) and its clothes (does the Rainbow Fairy dress sound good).

Today I checked out customizable shoes. I wear a shoe size 11, so shoe shopping is not always a pleasant task. However, both of the two brands I checked out, Nike and Puma, sell larger sizes, so not only were my experiences fun, they did not damage my ego whatsoever.

NIKEiD

I started off testing out Nike's NIKEiD. Within five seconds of entering the Web site I pinned Nike's target market as teenagers and young adults. All of the featured shoes are named after current famous basketball players (namely, Kobe Bryant), and there was also a promotion for the NIKEiD iPhone app.

I was immediately blown away by the wide variety of shoes the brand offers. Where were all these choices when I ran track in high school?! I immediately checked out how to customize my own running shoe. It was here that I found the first downside: information about the shoe is very hard to find. When I clicked on a shoe, the site took me to the customization page. The information about the shoe itself was out of sight at the bottom of the page. Furthermore, I wasn't told what type of running, such as long distance or sprinting, most suited each design. Although I'm an avid runner I don't know much about the shoes, and information provided about the different designs has always been important to me.

I then began the customization process. I was very excited to have so many color choices available to me. Fashion and color are by far not the most important aspects of a running shoe, but I do like a feminine appearance. Most running shoes I've seen have a similar blue/green/gray theme. I've also always disliked wearing white running shoes, because they appear old and worn very quickly. I loved that I could choose black as the base color for my customizable shoe. In addition, I could choose the color of the tips, lining and even the Nike swoosh!

There were only a couple issues with the customization process. The first, minor problem was that the color selection varied depending on each part of the shoe. It's understandable, but a couple times I had to change around the rest of my color scheme. The second problem was that it was very confusing to know which parts of the shoe could be customized. It turned out that pretty much every aspect of the shoes are customizable, but some where harder to get to. After about five minutes of wondering why I was only 11/12ths of the way finished, I found the tiny link on the left that showed what I had left to customize.

In the end, I was able to customize a very pretty shoe. Unfortunately I am not on the market at the moment for a high quality running shoe, but if I were I would totally be getting the one I designed. It's everything I wish I had in my running shoes back in high school: quality, support, lightweight, stylish and a product of my own "creativity." NIKEiD also gave me many options for sharing my shoe design with my friends (and the rest of the world).

PUMA Mongolian Shoe BBQ

I then tested the PUMA Mongolian Shoe BBQ. My immediate thought was "why a Mongolian BBQ?" If I remember correctly, PUMA shoes are neither Mongolian nor BBQ fare. There was also a weird, overly happy chef greeting me on the starter page. I proceeded with caution...

I soon realized that PUMA was going for a restaurant-style customization process. The idea is that the consumers are choosing from a menu of options to create the shoe that's just right for them. I then thought, "Well, why a Mongolian BBQ? Why not a buffet?" I then looked up information about Mongolian BBQs and found that they are buffets. Clever, but it doesn't make sense and is slightly confusing to the average, uninformed consumer.

The customization process is similar to NIKEiD. I first chose the style of shoe I wanted to customize and proceeded to choose what color I wanted each part of the shoe to be. With the PUMA shoes, though, I was choosing the material of each part as well as the color. There were certainly less color options than with the Nike shoes, but they made up for it in a variety of materials such as canvas, leather and suede. The PUMA customization process was also more organized than NIKEiD, and I had a easier experience.

Here I was able to customize another very pretty shoe. The PUMA Mongolian BBQ did not make it quite as easy to share my shoe with the world as NIKEiD, but it still offered the option. Still, I'm even less in the market for a sporty fashion shoe than I am for a quality running shoe. Sorry PUMA!

And the winner of the Customizable Shoe Showdown (by a very slight margin) is...PUMA! The easier customization process definitely gave it an edge over NIKEiD, although I preferred the theme/layout and iPhone app offering of NIKEiD.

With more and more companies and brands embracing products generated and customized by the consumer it will be interesting to see what options will be available in the future.