Technology Management & Leadership

I was reading The Long Tail by Chris Anderson when it dawned on me; the mass customization industry is the incarnation of the long tail principle. Absolute diversity, zero inventory cost, and the difficult issue for customers of finding what they need. The way those products are handled at the moment is similar to a standard catalog of shelf products. We categorize them, define sets of options for individual SKUs, use some cross-selling and up-selling techniques and have consumers go through a lengthy process of deciding exactly what they want. The problem is, they know about some features of their desired products, but not all of them. It’s easier for someone to say: “I want to buy a big, nice, leather book for my wedding party photos” than “Hey, let’s buy a blue faux-leather hard-cover book with a keyhole and stitched binding, silver halide printed high-end paper pages and a feather effect on my pictures!” Read more…