Keywords

1 Introduction

Mass customization (MC) is a production strategy focused on the broad provision of personalized products and services (Davis 1989; Pine et al. 1993). It is the method of “effectively postponing the task of differentiating a product for a specific customer until the latest possible point in the supply network.” (Chase, Jacobs and Aquilano 2006, p. 419). To meet the personal needs of customers, vendors provide consumers with a wild range of choices, which leads to higher task complexity (Dellaert et al. 2005). Since increased complexity requires greater consumer effort to generate the same mass customized product (Johnson and Payne 1985), and, all else equal, consumers like to minimize decision effort (Wright 1975), some vendors offer consumers default template to help consumers customize products. Prior research showed that customizing with a default product template reduces task complexity and increases mental simulation (Hildebrand, Häubl, and Herrman 2014), which affects consumer’s perceived ownership to the customized product (Peck, Barger, and Webb 2003). By customizing from scratch, consumers may find it hard to design the product they want, while a default template gives them a prototype to customize their products. Under the default provision scenario, consumers can firstly choose a product template from a choice set, and then modify the chosen product to meet their final needs. In this way, consumers may find it easier to customize the product and create mental images of the product, a process that may also affect consumers’ customizing experience. When consumers are given a default product template, they are more likely to create the vivid mental simulation, and the mental simulation increases perception of ownership (Peck, Barger, and Webb 2003). Thus, default template is very likely to affect the customizing process and consumers’ decision making.

Previous MC researches mainly focus on four areas: namely, economics of MC, MC success factors, MC enablers and C-M interaction (Fogliatto et al. 2012), while few studies have focused on the interface perspective. With the rapid development of mobile internet, mobile terminals play ever vital roles in conducting e-commerce. Industry research suggests that over 8 % of e-commerce website visits come from tablets, and the 2012 Black Friday weekend saw almost 20 % of online sales from tablets and smart phones (IBM 2012).As computer usage has shifted from desktop computers to laptops and tablets, interfaces have shifted from computer mice to touch pad and touch screen (Brasel and Gips 2014).These interface changes may, in turn, generate changes in the response of consumers viewing identical content as digital interfaces fundamentally change the experience of the content they access (Rokeby 1998). Since touch interface often leads to better shopping experiences, mobile terminals have the salient advantage over PCs. In the context of online customization, however, little attention has been paid to the impacts of different terminals on consumers’ purchase intention. Previous research has shown that touching a product increases consumers’ psychological ownership (Peck and Shu 2009), in a way to result in higher endowment effect (Pierce, Kostova, and Dirks 2003;Reb and Connolly 2007). Even imagining touch can generate perceived ownership similar to actually touching an object (Peck, Barger, and Webb 2003). When consumers use mobile tablet, they have to touch the product on the screen. At the same time, they may imagine touching the real product. When consumers customize products, they have to devote efforts to the customizing process, so that endowment effect is created, which causes consumers to overvalue items that they perceive they own (Franciosi et al. 1996). As a result, when consumers use configurator on mobile tablet, the value generated from the customizing process and the purchase decision may be different from those on PC. Since terminal affect mental simulation, terminal may affect default template’s influence on consumers’ purchase intention.

Default template not only provides convenience for consumers by giving a prototype, it also depresses consumers’ expression of personalization. Different people may perceive the usefulness of default template differently, so personality trait is introduced to explain the mechanism. Need for uniqueness reflects an individual’s desire to be different from other people (Ho et al. 2008). Need for uniqueness may moderate default template’s effect as well.

This article aims to find out the effect that default template have on purchase intention. Besides, we also explore the moderating effect of terminal and need for uniqueness. A 2 by 2 factor lab experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis. All subjects were asked to customize a pair of shoes using www.idx.com.cn. Our study illuminates the impacts of different terminals and default template on consumers’ decision making, and finds out the moderating effect of the terminal and need for uniqueness. Based on the result, vendors can also determine whether or not to provide default template and how to design their website on different terminals.

This paper is constructed as follows. In the following section, we review prior literature and discuss theoretical model and hypothesis. We then present analysis and result, followed by a discussion and implication. Finally, we conclude the paper with directions for future research.

2 Literature Review

In this study, consumers’ intention to buy (ITB) denotes consumers’ intention to buy a customized product. Need for uniqueness (NFU) is introduced as a moderating variable. Need for uniqueness reflects an individual’s desire to be different from other people; it is a “counter-conformity motivation” (Nail 1986).

2.1 Default Template

To provide more personalized products for customers, vendors give consumers the opportunity to configure their own product by individually choosing each of its attributes. However, customizing a product by specifying each attribute individually tends to be onerous for consumers (Hildebrand et al. 2014). Too many choices in the customizing process increase the task complexity for consumers, and, in turn, depress consumers’ purchase intention. As mass customization becomes more complex, it becomes more likely that consumers need to resort to simplifying decision heuristics (Newell and Simon 1972). To solve the dilemma, some vendors provide a set of default templates to give consumers some inspires to design their own products. In the default template provision scenario, consumers’ customizing process is divided into two steps. Firstly, they can choose a template that is most similar to their preferences. Secondly, they can refine any small element on the template if they are not satisfied with some parts of the template.

In the case of customizing with default template, the configuration process begins with the presentation of fully specified products, from which consumers select one as their starting point. So customizing with default templates is a top-down process. According to neurophysiologic studies, top-down processing is more strongly associated with the dorsal region of the human brain, which is responsible for motor behavior and visual control (Engel, Fries, and Singer 2001; Goodale and Milner 1992; Norman 2002).Activation of brain regions that are associated with motor behavior should be conducive to mental simulation (Hildebrand et al. 2014). Social psychology research has demonstrated that mental simulation can lead to higher assessed probability estimates of simulated events and positive changes in attitudes, brand evaluations, and actual behavior, particularly if the simulation is self-relevant and repeated (Anderson 1983; Carroll 1978; Gregory, Cialdini, and Carpenter 1982).

In addition, insights from prior work on problem solving suggest that partitioning a problem into a number of smaller, more manageable ones can mitigate the perceived difficulty of solving the overall problem (Von Hippel 1994; Lau, Yam, and Tang 2011). Since the task is less difficult, consumers may be more willing to buy the customized product. Therefore, we propose:

H1: Customizing with default template results in a higher level of intention to buy (ITB) than customizing without default template.

2.2 Terminal

As computer usage has shifted from desktop computers to laptops and tablets, interfaces have shifted from computer mice to touch pads and touch screens (Brasel and Gips 2014). Touch in consumer behavior is a recent area of inquiry (Jansson-Boyd 2011; Peck and Childers 2003). Since most mobile terminals, such as smart phones and tablets, are equipped with touch interfaces, research on mobile terminals calls for special attention. Peck and Shu (2009) found that merely touching a product increases psychological ownership, and touching is employed in social contexts to communicate temporary territorial ownership over public goods (Werner, Brown, and Damron 1981). Other research has shown that imaging touching a product also increases psychological ownership (Peck, Barger, and Webb 2003), and object interactivity increases the vividness of mental product images (Schlosser 2006), so mental simulation is created. When consumers customize products on mobile terminals, they have to touch the product on the screen. As a result, they would be more likely to create mental simulation and perceive that they own the product.

Since terminal affects the customizing process, terminal may moderate the effect that default template has on consumers’ ITB. When customizing on tablet, consumers will perceive a higher level of mental simulation, so the positive effect of default template will be more obvious. Besides, when consumers customize on PCs, they are skillful enough to use the configurator, so they may feel less complex about the task. As a result, the difference between with default template scenario and without default template scenario will be narrowed on the PC terminal. Therefore, we propose:

H2: Terminal will moderate the effect that default template has on consumers’ intention to buy (ITB).

2.3 Need for Uniqueness

Although default template offers consumers a prototype to design their own products, it may also depress consumers’ uniqueness expression. To better understand the mechanism of the effect of default template, personality trait should also be considered. Need for uniqueness (NFU) reflects an individual’s desire to be different from others; it is a “counter-conformity motivation” (Nail 1986). Individuals with a high need for uniqueness have a higher tendency to develop and enhance their personal identity through the acquisition, utilization, and disposition of consumer goods (Tian et al. 2001). Individuals with a high need for uniqueness are less likely to choose compromise options and tend to make unconventional choices (Simonson and Nowlis 2000). Individuals with a high need for uniqueness prefer unusual choices because they want to use non-obvious grounds and reasons that are novel to express their distinctiveness and uniqueness and to demonstrate their intellect (Ho et al. 2008).In the customization settings, people with a high level of need for uniqueness tend to seek for their own design element. Even given a default template, they would find default template less useful, because they will design their own product anyway. As a result, need for uniqueness will moderate the effect of default template. Therefore, we propose:

H3: Need for uniqueness (NFU) will moderate the effect that default template has on consumers’ intention to buy.

The theoretical model is shown in Fig. 1, where terminal: 0 for PC; 1 for tablet; default template: 0 for without default template and1 for with default template.

Fig. 1.
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Theoretical model

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3 Methodology

3.1 Experimental Design

We employed a 2 by 2 factorial design. Two types of terminal, namely PC and tablet, were used to conduct the experiment. Two different task scenarios were exposed to the subjects in the experiment: with default template and without default template. A total of 40 subjects (65 % female) were recruited from a national university in China to participate the experiment. Since woman is more likely than man to customize product, female ratio is a little bit higher. All the subjects were asked to customize a pair of shoes for themselves using the configurator: www.idx.com.cn. According to configurator-database report (2013), shoes are listed the top 10 products across over 900 product configurators, so shoes were used as a typical customization product in the experiment. At first, subjects were shown a video introducing customization, and were given a piece of paper introducing their tasks. Then subjects are randomly assigned to one of the four treatments: namely, PC/with default template, PC/without default template, tablet/with default template, tablet/without default template. After the experiment, they were asked whether they felt comfortable when they were customizing the shoes, whether the default template was helpful, and how did they like the tablet. To ensure the quality of the experiment, we informed all subjects that they had one out of eight chances to get the pair of shoes they customized during the experiment.

For subjects using PC terminal, they were given a desktop computer with a mouse to customize the shoes. For subjects using tablet terminal, they were given a Windows Surface with touch interface to finish the task. All the web design on the PC terminal and tablet terminal was the same. In the with default template scenario, a set of finished designs was shown on the screen, and subjects were told that they can choose designs from the set and refine the designs. In the without default template scenario, subjects were given a pair of white shoes. All other irrelevant elements on the original webpage were concealed by changing the source code. Screen snapshots of “with default template” and “without default template” were shown in Fig. 2. PC and Tablet experiment conditions are shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 2.
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With default template(left) versus without default template(right)

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Fig. 3.
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PC condition (left) versus tablet condition (right)

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3.2 Instrument

To measure consumers’ intention to buy, we asked subjects to what degree they would like to buy the customized shoes. Need for uniqueness is measured using the scale in Ho et al.’s (2008).

4 Result and Analysis

4.1 Sample and Assumptions Tests

The sample used for this study consists of 40 subjects. The demographics of our sample can be seen in Table 1.

Table 1. Subject demographics
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The age of our subjects ranges from 18 to 22. The subjects include 65 % female and 82.5 % undergraduate students.

To confirm that the subjects were randomly assigned to the four treatments, we conducted a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Test result showed no significant differences in gender (F = 0.347, P = 0.792), age (F = 2.604, P = 0.067), and education (F = 1.891, P = 0.149) among the four experimental conditions. Also, since there are more women than men and more undergraduate students than master students in our sample, we used analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test whether there are any significant differences in the dependent variable between genders and education, and result shows that the dependent variable has no significant differences.

In order to test the validity of the constructs, we performed reliability analysis. The Cronbach’s alpha values and descriptive statistics of all constructs can be seen in Table 2. As seen in Table 2, the scales show good convergent validity. The Cronbach’s alpha value for need for uniqueness is above the recommended 0.7, indicating good reliability (Nunnally 1967).

Table 2. Reliability and validity
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To test the convergent validity, average variance extracted (AVE) was assessed. As seen in the Table 2, AVE is above the threshold of 0.5 (Chin 1998). Thus, this construct demonstrated satisfactory convergent validity.

4.2 Results

In order to test the model, we conducted analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results of the effects that default template, terminal and NFU have on ITB can be seen in Table 3. Default template and need for uniqueness have significant influence on ITB. So H1 is supported.

Table 3. ANOVA (Dependent variable: ITB)
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The interaction effects are shown in Table 4. As the result indicates, terminal moderates the effect that default template has on intention to buy. Thus, H2 is supported. Need for uniquessness also moderatesthe positive effect that default template has on intention to buy. H3 is supported. As seen in Fig. 4, PC terminal will narrow the gap between the ITB with default templates and that without default templates.Individuals with a high level of need for uniqueness tend to be less affected by default template.

Table 4. ANOVA (Dependent variable: ITB)
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Fig. 4.
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Interaction effect

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5 Discussion

This study examined the effect that default template has on consumers’ purchase decision, and the moderating effect of terminal and need for uniqueness on the relationship. We reexamined the role of default template in the study of Hildebrand et al. (2014), and we introduced a new dependent variable: intention to buy. As per our study, default template increases consumers’ intention to buy. To demonstrate the mechanism in the model, we introduced two new moderating variables: terminal and need for uniqueness. Test result showed that on PC condition the positive effect that default template has on consumers’ intention to buy is alleviated, and individuals with a high level of need for uniqueness are less affected by default template.

Theoretically, our study illuminates the role of default template in the customization settings. Moreover, moderating effect of terminal and need for uniqueness were also illustrated in this paper.

Practically, vendors can learn how to design their configurators on PC and tablet, respectively. Since mobile terminals have the salient advantage over PCs, vendors should pay more attention to the design and promotion of the site on mobile terminal. However, our research has some limitations. Firstly, more types of products can be examined to illustrate this issue. Secondly, smart phones can be also studied to explore the difference on three terminals: PC, tablet and smart phone. For future studies, similar studies can be carried on more products, such as T-shirts. To test all terminals, customizing on PC, tablet and smart phone can also be studied.

6 Conclusion

In the context of customization, too many choices are given to consumers. To solve the problem that consumers may find it difficult to customizing the most wanted products facing a wide range of choice set, many vendors provide default template for consumers. We found that default template increases consumers’ intention to buy the customized products. Contrary to prior studies, we introduced two moderating variables to demonstrate the mechanism. As mobile terminals become vital devices in conducting e-commerce, vendors should better understand the difference between mobile terminals and desktop computers. We also found that terminal have moderating effect on default template, and consumers’ need for uniqueness moderates default template’s effect as well. Default template shows minor effect on desktop computer, while it shows significant positive effect on tablet. When need for uniqueness is high, the positive effect of default template is alleviated.