Sales configurator capabilities to avoid the product variety paradox: Construct development and validation

Trentin, Alessio; Perin, Elisa; Forza, Cipriano

doi:10.1016/j.compind.2013.02.006

Cited by 39 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…chat boxes, online social networks) enables a form of customer socialization that has a profound impact on customer decision making [19,[46][47][48]. The socialization process enabled by SSW is possible thanks to SSW´s capability of providing communication tools [1,2] that make the social-interaction process easy and convenient (because it usually costs less) via online platforms such as blogs, instant messaging, and social networking sites. For example, in virtual communities, members can interact easily with virtual groups through electronic communication and quickly learn task-related knowledge and skills through their interactions with other members [7,48].…”

Section: Social Web Technologies Used To Support Digital Customersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…OSCs are knowledge-based software applications that support potential customers or sales people who are interacting with customers online to completely and correctly specify a product solution from within the company's offerings [1][2][3]. Sales configurators are designed with the purpose of guiding users toward configuration solutions that best fulfill their specific needs [53][54][55][56].…”

Section: Online Sales Configuratorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With the goal being to analyze a relevant sample of young people, our participants were selected from management engineering students at the authors' university. Previous research has recognized that young people represent the majority of business-to-consumer sales configurator users [1,60,68 ]. Our sample of 189 participants comprised 129 males and 60 females.…”

Section: Participants' Sample Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The process of selling customized products is increasingly occurring via online sales configurators (OSCs). OSCs are mass-customization (MC) toolkits designed to support potential customers in choosing the product configuration that best suits their needs from a company's web product offerings [1][2][3]. However, selling through the web is challenging not only because it is a new sales method for many companies but also because e-commerce is undergoing a constant evolution driven by the adoption of a variety of social web technologies [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Users’ Social-interaction Needs While Shopping via Online Sales Configurators

Grosso¹,

Forza²

2019

Int J Ind Eng Manag

Self Cite

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The growing adoption of social web technologies such as social software (SSW) in online configuration environments has enabled the possibility of supporting configurator users in interacting digitally with real people while they are shopping for customized products. Previous research has identified that online sales configurators (OSCs) are currently connected to SSW with different modalities to provide configurator users with a variety of options to digitally interact with real people. Enriching the configuration environment with social-interaction tools has engendered the phenomenon of socialproduct customization. Recent studies considered the social product-customization by investigating the impact that community feedback and social comparisons has on configurator user. However, the OSCs users' need to interact with different referents during their configuration process, and whether the SSW-OSCs connections respond to this need are still unsearched. To address this gap, the present study explores (a) whether users experience the need to interact with different referents while shopping via OSCs and (b) which interaction modalities users are looking for. By considering 943 configuration experiences from 189 users of 378 OSCs for various consumer goods, the present study finds that the need for social interaction by OSC users is highly relevant. Moreover, OSC users perceive the need to interact with different referents during different stages of the configuration process, and, depending on the referent with whom they wish to interact, they are interested in different interaction modalities in terms of how and where those interactions take place. These findings imply that mass customizers may leverage their customers' need to interact with real people while shopping online via OSCs in order to better engage their actual and potential customers.

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Section: Social Web Technologies Used To Support Digital Customersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Online Sales Configuratorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Participants' Sample Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Users’ Social-interaction Needs While Shopping via Online Sales Configurators

Grosso¹,

Forza²

2019

Int J Ind Eng Manag

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…It is the product configurators that may have a key role in lessening the detrimental effects of the product variety paradox [12]. A product configurator is a subtype of a software based on expert systems or knowledge-based systems whose crucial purpose is the transfer of every individual customer's needs into a complete and valid product specification that will satisfy the customer's needs within the production range of a company [13].…”

Section: Product Configuratorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT AND PRODUCT CONFIGURATORS IN SMEs OKP WITH THE DOMINANT VARIATION OF THE TOPOLOGY

Aleksić

Janković

2017

FU Aut Cont Rob

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Exploring Configurator Users’ Motivational Drivers for Digital Social Interaction

Grosso

Forza

2021

Intelligent Systems in Industrial Applications

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At a global level, the demand for online transactions is increasing. This is propelled by both the digital transformation paradigm and the COVID 19 pandemic. The research on Web infrastructure design recognizes the impact that social, behavioral, and human aspects have on online transactions in e-commerce, e-health, e-education, and e-work. As a result, social computing features are leading the Web with information and communication technologies that facilitate interactions among web users through socially enhanced online environments. It is crucial to research the social, behavioral, and human dimensions of web-mediated activities, especially when social activities are restricted only to an online environment. The present study focuses on the social dimension of the e-commerce of customizable products. This domain was selected because of the specificity of its product self-design process in terms of customers' decision-making and their involvement in product value creation. This study aims to seek the extent that a set of customers' motivational drivers rely on their need to interact with real persons during the technology-assisted process of products' self-design. By adopting a user-centered perspective, the study considers 937 self-design experiences by 187 young adult users on a sample of 378 business-to-customers product configurators. The results should provide companies and software designers with insights about customers' need for social presence during their product self-design experience so that they can fulfill this need by using social technology that provides positive experiences.

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Sales configurator capabilities to avoid the product variety paradox: Construct development and validation

Cited by 39 publications

References 94 publications

Users’ Social-interaction Needs While Shopping via Online Sales Configurators

Users’ Social-interaction Needs While Shopping via Online Sales Configurators

CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT AND PRODUCT CONFIGURATORS IN SMEs OKP WITH THE DOMINANT VARIATION OF THE TOPOLOGY

Exploring Configurator Users’ Motivational Drivers for Digital Social Interaction

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