Expertise and industry leadership.
Want to learn what you need to know about creating and running a successful product customization program? You’re in the right place!Past, Present, and Future: Adding Rocket Fuel to Product Personalization
In a retail environment that’s both increasingly digital and awash in product choices, forging an emotional bond with consumers is the moat that protects your brand’s position. Product personalization is a core element of that protective moat. But to fully exploit the...
Who are the product customizers?
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the prospect of starting a mass customization program. Getting the right product configuration software, modifying your supply chain and logistics to handle single-piece orders, developing a marketing strategy, working with your retail...
Product customization: your path to increased sustainability.
Driven by consumer awareness and shifting preferences, brands are increasingly seeking ways to make their products – and their companies – more sustainable. Most of those efforts are focused on sourcing. Whether it’s recycled PET bottles being converted into fleece...
Your special makeup business can be improved.
The special makeup (SMU) business is a potential profit machine for any brand. Retail partners pre-commit to the purchase, so they assume all the inventory risk of the product. But instead of being a fast-flowing river of value and profits, the SMU function is...
Want to put some teeth into your social responsibility program? Try mass customization.
The apparel and accessories industries have challenges when it comes to social responsibility. Periodically you’ll see moody, black and white ads on social media trumpeting a company’s support for Black Lives Matter, or decrying working conditions in Bangladeshi and...
The most important step in product customization: thinking.
Companies typically view product customization – or as we like to call it, mass customization – as something that’s difficult, complicated, and only accessible to giant brands like Nike or Suit Supply. But that perception is wrong. Mass customization can actually be...
A better approach to limited edition products.
Brands have long known that limited editions of products are potential gold mines. Witness the lines of people (in pre-Covid days) before a Nike shoe drop or a new Supreme t-shirt launch. Consumers love the cachet of the special product, of being one in a million,...
Two good strategies for reducing inventory waste.
When dealing with problems, companies often focus on mitigating the effects of the problem, rather than fixing the root cause. This is precisely what we see every year in the footwear, apparel, and accessories industries, when brands are forced to either closeout slow...
The turnkey option for product customization.
Product customization and product personalization programs can be intimidating. Your factories might not be willing to manufacture in small volumes. Your supply chain may not be ready to ship frequently, and in small lot sizes. Your finance and accounting systems...
Order management is where the profit margin lies.
As companies continue to explore the possibility of personalized production and mass customization, they inevitably spend an inordinate amount of time assessing the pretty front-end, consumer-facing software. And let’s face it: all those rotating 3D renderings of your...
Transitioning to made-to-order in 3 key steps.
Is a made-to-order strategy feasible for apparel, footwear, and accessories? Fast Company just published an excellent article on how some smaller brands are thriving by abandoning the industry standard build-to-forecast approach, and instead adopting a made-to-order...
Mass customization doesn’t cost you money. It makes you money.
In the wake of COVID-19, your unsold inventory is not (unfortunately) like a fine wine: it’s not getting more valuable with age. The sales you’ve lost—particularly with highly seasonal product—are yet another indication that you should be aggressively exploring mass...