http://nikeid.nike.com/nikeid/index.jsp#home
Nowadays, many companies such as Nike, Starbucks, Apple have met one of the hottest startup trend–Mass customization. Personally I love Nike sports and I usually use the customizing service–NIKEiD for shoes and T-shirts. It is more applicable to say that I buy a creative experience which allows me to fiddle with colors, patterns, textures, shapes and sizes online than I just purchase some goods. I think it is a clever way to stimulate costumers’ design and transform it into demand which equals to money!
From what I have known, NikeiD’s online community has recently reached 15 million people. In the same period Nike’s market share has grown from 48-61%. The most surprising fact is that NIKE iD now is 20% of store revenue! It is 3.5 billion!!!
However, not every firms succeed in mass customization as Nike did. Industry leaders, including Toyota, Dow Jones, and Motorola, have tried to employ mass customization but failed. For me, customization is potential to scale but also limited because the innovation space has remained small when more and more companies want to have a finger in the pie.
Last, I want to ask a question: What products would like to customize?