Market Potential of Mass Customized

¶ … Market Potential of Mass Customized Footwear

As the global economy expands potential customer bases and increases the spending power of the developing world, the idea of mass customization becomes an emerging paradigm, particularly in the clothing market.

The proposed research will focus on a qualitative inquiry into the market potential for mass customized footwear. The main source of primary data will be a focus group that will include students, housewives, managers, and entry level employee and a retired person. Understandably, this will be a limited universe, but the hope is to extrapolate data based on demographic and psychographic norms (e.g. many retirees think X as opposed to managers who think Y).

The Focus Group: A focus group is part of the qualitative research toolbox in which a group of individuals are asked about their perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes in regard to a product or service that exists or might exist (ideas in packaging, promotion, new products, etc.). Questions are asked in a relaxed atmosphere in which participants may engage with other participants as well. In product marketing, this is a tool that is often used prior to other qualitative and quantitative research in order to assess a direction or provide more detail prior to larger studies. In small studies, the data from focus groups is often used to extrapolate to a larger universe, but this can be problematical since a true representation of the population is not usually possible in focus groups. Of course, there are many types of focus groups, but the most standard include a moderator that guides the questions and/or probes the respondents for greater detail. Research shows that group interactions product data and insights that would not necessarily be possible in an individual situation -- the group can feed upon the ideas of each other, but can also predispose bias (Edmunds, 2008).

Participants: In our study, we will assume that we have at least 8 participants with an approximate 50/50 split between men and women. As noted, we have at least one student, one retiree, one manager, one housewife, and one entry level employee.

We will also assume that in the prescreening we were able to capture demographic data (age, gender, race, income, lifestyle, etc.).

Questions for Focus Group (Note, subheadings are potential probes based on responses):

1. Do any of you shop online for clothing?

a. How often? Reasons?

b. Perceptions of Quality, convenience, etc.

c. Approximate amount spent on online clothing purchases per annum?

d. Desire to continue?

2. Now, thinking about clothing, let's turn to purchases of shoes? Do you ever shop online for your shoe purchases?

a. Why or why not?

b. Reasons?

c. Concerned with "fit"

d. How do most shoe retailers in your experience handle returns?

e. Approximate amount spent on online shoe purchases per annum?

f. Desire to continue?

3. Are you familiar with the term "mass customized footwear"?

a. What does that term mean to you?

b.

4. Would "mass customized footwear" be attractive to you?