Customerization

CUSTOMERIZATION: THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN MASS CUSTOMIZATION
Jerry Wind Arvind Rangaswamy f
YORAM (JERRY) WIND is the Lauder Professor and Professor of Marketing, Director of the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management, and Director of the Wharton Fellows in e-Business Program, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ARVIND RANGASWAMY is the Jonas H. Anchel Professor and Professor of Marketing and Research Director of the eBusiness Research Center, Penn State University. We are grateful to Tom Parker who conducted most of the interviews for this article, to Robert Gunther for editorial assistance and to Colin Crook for his most helpful comments.

ABSTRACT In this conceptual paper, we propose that the next stage of evolution of mass customization is customerization—a buyer-centric company strategy that combines mass customization with customized marketing. Spurred by the growth of Internet and related technologies, many leading companies (e.g., Dell) are beginning to deploy customerization on a large scale. In this paper we define customerization, and describe how it is different from the related strategies of mass customization, personalization, and one-to-one marketing. We also describe the opportunities and challenges companies face in deploying a customerization strategy, and the potential benefits that they might realize.

© 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. f JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING VOLUME 15 / NUMBER 1 / WINTER 2001

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I. INTRODUCTION
A new type of mass customization is redefining marketing and business strategies. Many companies now offer highly customized products in a wide range of categories, including sneakers, coffee, dental products, newspapers, vitamins, bicycles, cars, golf clubs, eyeglasses, garden design, cosmetics, and greeting cards. Some companies, such as priceline.com and DealTime.com have customized the

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