Changing nature of work and the market.
=================================== > The Customizer Is Always Right > Why I said good-bye to one-size-fits-all and became part of the mass > one-to-one market. > By J. Bradford DeLong > Somewhere in the depths of the Lands' End Internet operation, a computer > has got my number. > It started with a simple email offering a free pair of pants if I would > send in my waist and inseam measurements and the shape of my thigh. I did. > The pants came. (Actually, a bug caused me to receive two free pairs, but > I'm not complaining.) I forwarded feedback on the fit, and the computer > tweaked the measurements. > The net result: a great pair of pants for not a lot of effort. > "You're a typical American male," my wife, Ann Marie, said. "They're > guessing that you don't like to shop, value convenience above all, and > will pay just to avoid having to go to the store. I've bought 10 times as > much stuff at the Lands' End Web site as you have, and they've never > offered me a free pair of pants." > She's right. Ordering online versus going to the mall is no longer much of > a choice. The fact that after an hour at the store I emerge with something > that's an inch too long has made me even less enthusiastic about the mall. > And so Lands' End cleans up, charging me extra for the quality of the fit. > I'm not alone. Custom orders reportedly account for 40 percent of the > company's Web site sales in the chino and jeans categories. "When we went > into this, we estimated it would be 10 percent," Bill Bass, senior VP of > ecommerce and international sales, recently told The New York Times. But > it turns out that once customers are confident the fit is right, "they'll > typically buy every color in those jeans or chinos or whatever." And > Lands' End did this with no advertising beyond its mail-order catalog. > Futurists have long forecast that the information age will mark the dawn > of mass customization, just as the early 20th century saw the rise of mass > production. Everything from breakfast cereal to business-school textbooks > will be specially tailored to your tastes or needs. > It's a big switch from the model pioneered by Henry Ford. Back then, the > idea was to focus on cutting costs to the bone by making as many > completely identical products as possible. Thus Ford could take maximum > advantage of all available efficiencies. And he'd sell you any car you > wanted - as long as it was a black Model T. He was in the business of > selling transportation as cheaply as possible, and giving a consumer a > choice of model or color would complicate the system, erode the scale > economies, and raise costs. > Yet it turned out that people wanted the freedom to buy a car that didn't > look like everybody else's. At General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan and his > fellow executives figured out that the principal economies of scale were > to be found in the manufacture and assembly of the chassis and drivetrain. > They came up with an alternative business strategy: Take advantage of all > enabling technologies and margins, then slap a body - a Chevy, an Olds, a > Buick, a Caddy - on top and paint it whatever color - red, cream, green, > black - customers wanted. For 10 to 20 percent more than Ford charged for > its Model T and then Model A, consumers could have a car that looked the > way they wanted it to look rather than the way Henry Ford wanted it to > look. From the late 1920s into the 1970s, GM raked in the profits, > because, hard as it may be to believe, some people really did want a > lime-green Buick with large fins. > GM offered choice, but it wasn't really customization - no more than being > offered blue or tan chinos in size 34 or 36 is customization. > Mass-production apparel operations have no clue which pair of pants are > destined for me. They distribute clothes in various sizes and styles with > no real knowledge of tastes and preferences until the end of the season - > when sold-out lines represent lost opportunities and discount racks stand > as reminders of costly wrong guesses. > Now we may be on the verge of the era of mass customization. Today, it's > possible - if not quite easy - to keep track of which pair of pants sewn > in Mexico goes to which US consumer. And it is the extraordinarily low > cost of information processing that is the key. > How important is all this? It may be very important. There may be a huge > array of goods for which people are willing to pay a hefty premium to get > exactly what they want. From custom Baby Gap sweaters and Barbies to > personalized golf clubs and perfect reproductions of your broken-in jeans, > mass customization is rapidly replacing one-size-fits-all commodities. > Meanwhile, there has been a slight shift in the economy. > There is a fraction less of a job in men's pants sales in California. > There is a fraction more of a job keeping a server running for Lands' End. > Somewhere in Mexico, a factory has added employees and shifted its mix of > products to occasionally make not the normal run of pants that then need > to be altered but a special pair just for me. > Contact J. Bradford DeLong at www.j-bradford-delong.net. > > http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/view_pr.html _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
