Consumers’ willingness to pay for customization of smartphones

• Autor(a) principal: Berndt, Paulina Merve Schulze
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/40441
• topic: Mass customization; Product customization; Need for uniqueness; Consumers’ need for uniqueness; Customer satisfaction; Willingness to pay; Perceived quality; Idiosyncratic-preference attribute customization; Shared-preference attribute customization; Customização em massa; Customização do produto; Necessidade de exclusividade; Necessidade de exclusividade dos consumidores; Satisfação do cliente; Predisposição a pagar; Qualidade percebida; Customização de atributos de referência idiossincráticos; Customização de atributos de referência partilhada; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

The customization of products presents a strategic opportunity to adapt to the changing consumer needs by offering products that are tailored to a specific consumer’s preferences, differentiating them from other, standardized products. This process positively influences many variables such as customer satisfaction, customer loyalty or consumers’ willingness to pay for such a product. Nevertheless, successful implementation of customization is not yet common. This research focused on exploring personality-based influences on the evaluation of customized products and the demand for such by measuring the impact of consumers’ need for uniqueness on their willingness to pay for a customized product as well as on the perceived quality of a customized product. For this purpose, different levels of customization were tested and explored using qualitative as well as quantitative data. Results show that the customization of all product attributes is highly appreciated by consumers, expressed by an increased willingness to pay. Here, the perceived quality of a customized product fully mediates the increased willingness to pay. Most importantly, consumers with a strong need for uniqueness are willing to pay more for customized products than consumers with a weak need for uniqueness. Therefore, this study offers valuable insights into how customization is not valued equally by every consumer and that the right segmentation of consumers can lead to higher marketing efficiency and the adaptation of the pricing strategy to increase profitability.