Using conjoint choice experiments to model consumer choices of product component packages

Recent advances in flexibility and automation allow a growing number of manufacturers and service providers to 'mass-customize' their products and offer modules from which consumers can create their own individualized products (e.g., Gilmore and Pine 1997). Traditional production processes limit consumer choices to fixed products defined by suppliers, but new mass-customization processes allow consumers to create their own optimal combination of product components. Although mass-customization offers consumers increased flexibility and consumption utility, little is known about how consumer choices to package or bundle separate components differ (if at all) from choices among traditional fixed product options, much less what the impact of packaging product components will be on the market shares of such products or a producer's overall share in the category.