Perception of time in the online product customization process
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-03-2022-0159 |
| Published date | 12 October 2022 |
| Date | 12 October 2022 |
| Pages | 369-385 |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems |
| Author | Yue Wang,Daniel Y. Mo,Hoi Lam Ma |
Perception of time in the online
product customization process
Yue Wang, Daniel Y. Mo and Hoi Lam Ma
Department of Supply Chain and Information Management,
The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
Abstract
Purpose –Many e-commerce companies adopt a product customization platform offering various choices for
customers to configure products to better satisfy their needs. However, a method to effectively measure
customer satisfaction is lacking. This paper aims to investigate customers’perception of time in the online
configuration process of customized products and seeks to propose time perception as the measurement of the
effectiveness of online product customization.
Design/methodology/approach–An onl ine laptop customization system was used in an empirical experiment
to collect respondents’answers in a set of research questions. Regression and correlation analysis were conducted to
investigate the factors affecting customers’satisfaction as well as the relationships with time perception.
Findings –The experimentalresults reveal several factors in customers’perceptionof time during the online
productcustomizationprocess. First, customerstend to overestimatethe amount of time spent in a short-duration
task but underestimatethe amount of time spent in a long-durationtask. Second, customers’perceptions of time
aresignificantly correlatedwith their satisfactionwith the configuredproducts, and perceivedtime is moderately
correlatedwith their satisfaction withthe configuration process.Third, the difficulty of customizationtasks and
customers’motivation to processinformation also significantlyaffect customers’perceptions of tim e.
Originality/value –This paper advances the research on time perception by developing a new relative
segmentation-based method to estimate the subjective perception of time. This study also makes several
contributions to product customization research: the authors fill a research gap in the field of product
customization by incorporating customers’perceptions of time into the measurement of customer satisfaction
and by identifying the significant relationships among customers’perception of time, the ease of task selection,
the customers’motivationto process information, and customers’satisfaction with customized products. These
results aid in the design of online product customization systems.
Keywords Product customization, Product design, E-commerce, Time perception
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
E-commerce accounted for 20% of total retail spending worldwide in 2021 and is expanding
rapidly (Statista, 2022). The customized products segment is one of the fastest-growing areas,
and online product customization is now seen as the next big opportunity in the booming e-
commerce market. In his keynote speech at CeBIT (2015), Jack Ma, then chairman of Alibaba
Group, postulated that “in the future world, the business is C2B, not B2C”. Online product
customization systems have been implemented by companies in various sectors, including
the computer, automobile, and apparel industries (cyLEDGE, 2022). These systems enable
customers to customize the desired products based on their personal preferences. Customers
can not only enjoy tailor-made products that better satisfy their needs but also gain
satisfaction from the customization process itself (Shamsuzzoha et al., 2009;Sandrin et al.,
2017). Product customization has been considered an effective way for companies build long-
lasting loyalty (Salvador et al., 2009;Wang and Li, 2021).
The online
product
customization
process
369
The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for the constructive comments during
the review process. The work described in this paper was partially supported by the grants (UGC/
FDS14/E06/18, UGC/FDS14/E08/21, RMGS project code: 700004) from the Research Grants Council of
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0263-5577.htm
Received 28 March 2022
Revised 25 August 2022
Accepted 26 September 2022
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 123 No. 2, 2023
pp. 369-385
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-03-2022-0159
As customers become increasingly empowered to shape the products they buy in the
marketplace (Walsh and Mitchell, 2010), many firms have invested in research that
investigates ways to improve the user experience during the customization process, in
order to improve customers’satisfaction and build lasting customer loyalty (Mo et al.,
2016;Chen et al., 2017). Several methods to facilitate customers’decision-making
processes have been proposed. For example, Dell changed its online computer component
selection system, an attribute-based configurator that had been used since the 1990s, to a
customization via starting solution (CvSS) system (Hildebrand et al., 2014). The new
system enables customers to choose a starting solution from among the pre-configured
computers and then fine-tune the initial computer solution based their needs, bypassing
the demanding configuration process. This CvSS strategy has been used by Nike andMini
Cooper to facilitate customers’decision-making during product customization
(Hasenmaile-Aspin and Scharfenberger, 2020). Other innovations in this area include
navigation tools that offer default options or popular options to help customers navigate
thechoicesinthecustomizationprocess(Mandl et al.,2010;Buchanan et al., 2022)aswell
as needs-based configurators, which translate customer needs expressed in natural
language into technical product specifications for the customized product (Wang
et al., 2021).
Although considerable effort has been devoted to improving user experience during the
product customization process, we still lack an unbiased way to objectively measure
customer satisfaction and the effectiveness of customization systems. This makes it hard to
validate the effectiveness of previous efforts in improving user experience and satisfaction
with product customization from the customers’perspective. Efforts to improve the
customization experience have primarily focused on increasing sales, reducing demand for
product exchange, and helping company managershandle in-house tasks, such as reducing
the costs of design and production (Chen et al., 2009;Zhang et al., 2020). Thus far, few efforts
have been made to evaluate the effectiveness of customization from the customers’point of
view or to measure customers’satisfaction with the customization process and the resulting
products.
Traditionally, companies have used marketing surveys to evaluate their customers’
subjective experiences; such surveys often involve assessing the overall market for a good or
service, asking consumers about their likes and dislikes, or conducting focus groups to gauge
consumer responses to new products (Walsh et al., 2006). This type of research usually
depends on customers self-reporting their satisfaction with the customization process
(Franke et al., 2010). However, customers may not be willing or able to express their true
feelings about the experience under these circumstances. In addition, some researchers argue
that surveys and other marketing tools often suffer from opinion distortion and cherry-
picking to generate certain conclusions, as customers may unconsciously cooperate to
provide the results that companies want (Rushkoff, 2005). Thus, a research gap exists,
making it necessary to investigate new ways of measuring customer satisfaction and the
effectiveness of customization processes.
In studies of decision-making, time is an important indicator of consumer decision
quality (Grondin, 2008;Liu et al., 2011). Reducing decision-making time (i.e. the total time
needed for customers to acquire information, process their options, and come to a
decision) is a critical objective when optimizing decision systems, and one of the principal
aims of system design is to help customers find what they want in the shortest amount of
time (Peterson and Merino, 2003). Determining the time that customers are willing to
expend when making decisions helps product providers optimize the number of items to
include and determine the type of information to be presented in their decision systems.
Thispromptsustousetimeasthemeasuretoevaluate the effectiveness of the product
customization process, as time is a natural measure of costs (e.g. searching costs,
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