Customers frequently gravitate toward unique products, and firms increasingly utilize mass customization strategies allowing customers to self-customize products according to their unique preferences. While existing research shows that customers are willing to pay extra for this uniqueness, the present investigation points to a potential cost of self-customization that has been largely overlooked thus far. Specifically, the authors argue that what creates value for the individual consumer-designer (i.e., the original customer of the self-customized product) might conversely be detrimental to potential customers on the secondhand market, particularly in the context of aesthetic (vs. functional) customization. They show that although consumer-designers’ valuations are positively affected by uniqueness, uniqueness indeed negatively affects secondhand-market customers’ willingness to pay.

Do you want to find out more about it? Check out a recent paper co-authored by faculty from WU’s Marketing Department published in the Journal of Marketing Research: Fuchs M., and Schreier M., Paying twice for aesthetic customization? The negative effect of uniqueness on a product's resale value. Journal of Marketing Research, 2023, 60 (3), 602–624. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437221128576