Australian customer willingness to pay and wait for mass-customised products

The purpose of this paper is to find out how consumers constantly trade off the potential extra cost of mass customisation with the additional time they have to wait to receive their customised products.

The authors examine this issue by using conjoint analysis to estimate the trade-offs using a sample of Australian consumers. The authors use cluster analysis to form market segments in the three product categories examined.

The segments demonstrate that there are groups of customers who are quite willing to trade-off price with waiting time. The results have significant implications for Australian manufacturers who are contemplating moving into mass customisation.

Many researchers have investigated the issue of a customer’s readiness to buy a customised product. In particular, they have examined whether customers are willing to pay extra for a mass-customised product, whether they would spend some time to design it, as well as wait to receive it. There has been no study that has examined all three factors simultaneously. The results of this study can help manufacturers form a better understanding of customer willingness for purchasing mass-customised products.