Okonkwo Prelims

retailing and delivery. The customized service can be provided within the
hour of purchase or within a few days after the purchase, in which case the
product should be delivered straight to the consumer to maintain the seamless
luxury experience. The impact of point-of-sale customization on the value
chain is shown in Figure 8.7.

Method 3 customizing the retail shopping experience

Retail shopping forms an intricate part of the luxury consumer’s total experi-
ence with the brand, and the shopping experience can be customized accord-
ing to customer preferences. Consumers have become increasingly individual
in their tastes and inclinations and have differing and changing needs during
shopping. These needs are now too varied and unpredictable. The apparent
common consumer indicators such as age or gender are no longer adequate
for grouping or measuring consumer retail needs. For example, logic might
tell a sales representative in a luxury store that a 70-year-old consumer would
require shopping assistance and a 27-year-old might not. However, the real-
ity could easily be that the 70-year-old might have a crisply clear idea of her
taste as a result of years of experience in luxury shopping. She could also
have preferences for her shopping style such as a penchant for trunk shows.
On the other hand, the 27-year-old consumer might prefer style advice from
a shopping assistant in the store. It is risky to assume that shopping styles can
be predetermined.
The most effective manner of discovering consumer preferences is to ques-
tion them directly or to provide an opportunity for customers to indicate them.
One method of implementing this is to provide a wide range of shopping
options for a broad customer base including trunk shows, pre-collection
previews, exclusive customer events and home shopping. The second method
is to ask customers their preferences for shopping and to allow them to

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customize me!

Development

Standardized

products and

services

Production

Standardized

products and

services to be

customized

Retailing

Customizable

products and

services

Delivery

Customized

products and

services

Figure 8.7 The value chain changes in the point-of-sale customization of
products and services
Source: Adapted from B. Joseph Pine II (1997) Mass Customization: The New Frontier for
Business Competition.
Note: Coloured areas indicate changes.