ENHANCING THE BLENDED SHOPPING CONCEPT WITH
ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGIES
Added Value for Customers, Retailers and Additive Manufacturers
Britta Fuchs, Thomas Ritz and Henriette Stykow
Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, FH Aachen, Eupener Str. 70, 52070 Aachen, Germany
Keywords: Blended Shopping, Mass Customization, Additive Manufacturing, eCommerce, Retail, Toolkit, Customer
Experience, Distributed Manufacture.
Abstract: This paper starts from the idea that combining processes of eCommerce and traditional commerce (blended
shopping) can bring advantages for customers and retailer. One possibility to take the emerged
individualization trend on consumer markets into account is to integrate latest rapid prototyping
technologies (additive manufacturing) in order to enhance the blended shopping concept. The availability of
Internet can be seen as the enabler for such services. First blended shopping and rapid prototyping with its
latest developments of additive manufacturing (AM) are explained. Then their impacts on the aimed
individualized blended shopping concept are depicted with the help of a use case. From this use case the
benefits for business and consumers are derived and additionally the framework of a needed AM-toolkit is
concretized. Finally the paper closes with a future outlook on the necessity of research in the field of
individualization aspects of blended shopping and web standards.
1 INTRODUCTION
Fundamental changes have occurred in the last years
regarding the shopping behavior of consumers, who
nowadays organize their purchase over different
distribution channels.
The idea of blended shopping (Fuchs and Ritz,
2009) is to overcome the borders of traditional retail
and eCommerce in order to deliver increased value
to customer and merchant. Integrating eCommerce
services into a brick-and-mortar-shop demands for
interactive systems (such as web-enabled kiosk
terminals or mobile devices). Internet is the enabler
of blended shopping concepts, facilitates the
shopping processes and drives customer experience.
Customer experience is known to tremendously
shape the overall shopping engagement of the
individual.
Shopping as the goal-directed process of buying
a product not only depends on the utilitarian value
that is being proposed, but also on hedonic values.
Buying customized products has a high impact on
the hedonic value at usually high costs. A way to
offer customized products at (almost) mass product
prizes is mass customization (MC). It may now
experience another raise of importance with the
advent of additive manufacturing technologies
(AM). These enable an extent of freedom of creation
that was recently unknown and are mainly used by
industry to produce prototypes or small batches.
Now customized products produced by AM
technology are ready to be offered to consumers as
well.
To take the individualization trend into account
this paper addresses the enhancement of the blended
shopping concept by integrating latest customization
possibilities (AM). The ideas of blended shopping
and MC with AM are explained in chapter 2. The
possibilities and challenges for customer, merchants
and AM producers are presented in chapter 3. In this
scenario data flows and processes have to be
reengineered determined e.g. by the fact that non-
specialists (customers) have to communicate with
technicians (AM producers). A future outlook is
given in chapter 4.
2 SHOPPING AND PRODUCTION
APPROACHES
In this chapter the basic aspects of blended
492
Fuchs B., Ritz T. and Stykow H..
ENHANCING THE BLENDED SHOPPING CONCEPT WITH ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGIES - Added Value for Customers, Retailers
and Additive Manufacturers.
DOI: 10.5220/0003933704920501
In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST-2012), pages 492-501
ISBN: 978-989-8565-08-2
Copyright
c
2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
shopping, mass customization and additive
manufacturing are explained. This introduces to the
extension of the blended shopping concept with
customization in chapter 3.
2.1 Blended Shopping
When making a purchase decision, customers pass
several phases (see figure 1).
Figure 1: Customer decision process.
After recognizing a certain need or shortage of
something, they start searching for solutions. The
information mediation phase and the evaluation of
its outcome are critical for the purchase decision
regarding what product to buy and where (to what
price) to buy it. The conditions under which a
decision is taken also influence the perceived
satisfaction during later usage. The internet has
impacted shopping behaviors significantly. The
growth of information technology and its ubiquity
has strengthened the power of the customer. Not
only does he have easy access to domain knowledge,
price comparisons and user reviews on products but
also the opportunity to influence the rise and fall of
products and brands. Customers identified ways to
combine advantages of the traditional retail channel
with those of eCommerce: They might gather
information online and buy the product in a brick-
and-mortar-shop or vice versa, depending on the
type of product (Grewal et al., 2009); (van Baal and
Hudetz, 2008).
The concept of blended shopping expresses the
combination of both traditional retail and
eCommerce processes (Fuchs and Ritz, 2011).
Integrating eCommerce facilities into a brick-and-
mortar-shop could help the merchant to keep
turnover within the trade chain by satisfying
customers. Nevertheless many retailers still fear the
power of information technologies. Implementations
of interactive prototypes have depicted opportunities
of how to take advantage on the retail environment
(Fuchs and Ritz, 2011). Delivering information in a
relevant context proved to enhance the way the
customer navigates and understands the information.
This idea is not new – self-service technologies like
in-store information terminals or bar code scanners
are common retail practice for years. They provide
extensive product selections and powerful search
tools. For online shops offering this exact benefit it
becomes increasingly popular to gather the
interaction data of the user (e.g. which
products/features a customer was interested in,
which topics he explored how long, etc.). The
blended shopping scenario aims to gather that
information within the retail channel, which makes
its purposeful utilization more likely.
2.2 Customer Experience
The integration of interactive systems, such as
terminals or mobile devices by its nature adds
another aspect to the retail environment.
Multimedia-driven experience is one effective
means to shape a compelling customer experience
and a presumption to deal with the integration of
individualized products into the value chain.
Even though shopping is a purposeful activity, it
is not only and sometimes not even the goal to
acquire a product. Besides the specific need for a
product (utilitarian motivation), the wish for social
interaction, entertainment, recreation or intellectual
stimulation (hedonic motivations) might encourage
shopping (Arnold and Reynolds, 2003). These
aspects comprise emotional and social values
(Kotler et al., 2007); (Meffert and Burmann, 2008)
that add to the utilitarian value (see figure 2). They
impact the purchase decision.
Figure 2: Overall value of a product.
Puccinelli et al. (2009) suggest that goals,
schema, information processing, memory,
involvement, attitudes, affect, atmospherics,
consumer attributions and choices critically
influence the shopping behavior.
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While the influence from these elements differs
according to the phase of the decision process, all of
these are relevant for the evaluation phase.
Understanding these influences on the customer is a
precondition to enhance retail performance and thus
increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. They
impact the cognitive, affective, emotional, social and
physical responses to the retailer (Verhoef et al.,
2009). Despite the fact that he cannot control the
bespoken aspects, there are further facts that add to
the overall picture of a retail experience. These
include e.g. shop atmosphere, store layout,
assortment and prices. They all built up to what is
called customer experience. It is defined as “the
internal and subjective response customers have to
any direct or indirect contact with a company. Direct
contact generally occurs in the course of purchase,
use, and service and is usually initiated by the
customer. Indirect contact most often involves
unplanned encounters with representatives of a
company’s products, service or brands and takes the
form of word-of-mouth recommendations or
criticisms, advertising, news reports, reviews and so
forth” (Meyer and Schwager, 2007, p. 117).
Heading for a customer-oriented strategy,
retailers have to actively enrich the customer
experience by addressing the previously mentioned
aspects. It was argued that this has to take place in
accordance to the customer’s needs and objectives.
These critical retail drivers are so various because
they are unique to every customer. Consequently,
they are better understood the more a retailer knows
about the individual. One way to approach this goal
is to integrate the customer into retail experience or
even value creation like extending blended shopping
with individualization aspects.
2.3 Mass Customization
Blended shopping and the creation of customer
experience have the customer-centric approach in
common. It is that same idea that mass
customization originated in. Coined in 1987 by
Davis (Davis, 1987) and later refined by Pine (Pine,
1993) it means “developing, producing, marketing
and delivering affordable goods and services with
enough variety and customization that nearly
everyone finds exactly what they want” (p.44).
Once meant to meet the requirements and needs
of the individual customer MC until today did not
gain the market share one, with good cause, would
have it credited to. The idea of providing the
customer with an individualized product or service
that better suits his individual preferences than any
standard product is a goal, which enjoys more right
to exist than ever before.
Several facets lend themselves to distinguish
types of mass customization (Duray et al., 2000);
(Gilmore and Pine, 1997); (Piller and Stotko, 2002).
The most basic delineation expresses who is in
charge of transforming the customization
information into a product specification. In this
sense passive MC means that the transformation is
executed by the operator, whereas active MC assigns
this task to the customer.
The idea behind mass customization is basically
highly emotional: By customizing a mass product
the customer is caught at his most profound desires
and needs which derive from his personality, life-
style, self-perception and preferences. Blending
these attributes into a standard mass product
becomes more promising and at the same time
challenging when this task is achieved by the
customer itself (active MC). In the latter case, the
customer finds himself in the position of a co-
creator. He is ought to choose from a pre-defined set
of parameters and alternatives. This co-creation-
phase specifies the individual product.
The fact that preference information is known to
be sticky, which means that it is difficult to be
transferred from customer to supplier, militates in
favor of this form of active mass customization. It is
standard practice to enhance the information
elicitation with an interactive system (so-called
configurator or toolkit) (Piller, 2004).
2.4 Additive Manufacturing
The manufacturing industry for hundreds of years
has applied formative (e.g. pottery) or subtractive
(e.g. laser cutting) techniques in order to produce
goods. Recently, additive manufacturing (AM),
commonly known as 3D-printing, has evolved. It
describes the arrangement of material layers that
finally built up to the object. The geometrical
information for each slice is being derived from a
CAD volume-model. It defines the object’s inner
and outer shape. In order to build it, the model is
virtually being sliced into fine layers. This contour
information is given to the AM machine, which then
generates the object (Gebhardt, 2004). The different
AM technologies differ in terms of the way the
layers are generated (gluing, melting, extruding), the
materials they are able to process and the way the
layers are connected. Either way, the physical and
mechanical properties of the object are defined by
the chosen material.
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AM allows for a range of design possibilities that
was unknown until today. Since the product is built
up layer by layer, this allows for new approaches on
the product design such as:
definition of the inner structure (impacts e.g.
weight and stability)
complexity (e.g. holes, arching, warps,
interweavement)
integrated functional elements (e.g. hinges)
parts consolidation (multiple elements may be
manufactured as one)
Leaving behind traditional design restrictions in
terms of undercuts, draft angles, weld lines,
avoidance of sharp corners and uniform wall
thickness considerations, this offers real design
freedom (Hopkinson et al., 2006). However, some
considerations on wall thickness and resolution (that
is the height on the individual layers) and material
are required. They depend on the chosen technology.
Today’s variety of applications of AM shows its
opportunities. Besides aerospace and industry
branches like automotive it establishes on markets
where highly individual products are needed. These
include dental applications, hearing aids and
prostheses. It is furthermore emerging in jewelry
industry. With the coverage of further materials, AM
will become more relevant for other industries as
well (Gebhardt, 2007).
3 USE CASE: SHOE SOLE
CUSTOMIZATION
The almost unconstrained design freedom favors
additive manufacturing for mass customization with
blended shopping. It even pushes the boundaries of
what MC is known today. While existing MC-
approaches mostly offer the configuration of pre-
defined parameter values, MC with AM permits an
unconstrained solution space. This lives up to what
customization is meant to be.
This chapter ponders that potential application in
the field of shoe customization in a traditional brick-
and-mortar shop: the customization of the outsole of
a shoe. It demonstrates the benefits for potential
parties involved. Main facets grow from the creation
of a customer experience.
3.1 Concept Legitimation
The authors developed a concept for the
customization of the outsole of a shoe. AM allows to
not only modify the design in terms of color or
materials. The customer can create his very personal
footprint by also designing the patterns of the
outsole. Additionally it allows adding functional
elements such as spikes or heels. This customization
is enabled through a kiosk-system that runs the
product-specific application (toolkit).
Researchers and suppliers have identified the
footwear segment as a suitable use case for offering
individualization services. NikeID, Adidias Mi, and
Selve just name a few of available offerings today.
Apart from design choices, research has also
addressed how to automate production processes to
individualize the fit of a shoe. Proofs of concept
have already been achieved for the use of additive
manufacturing (Dietrich et al., 2007); (Peels, 2010).
The cross-channel behavior of consumers in the
footwear market shows, that 50% of the purchases
that are fulfilled via online sales happened to have
started in the traditional retail (van Baal and Hudetz,
2008). This makes it an ideal field for applying
blended shopping strategies. Innovating the retails’
purchase offers is a good means of differentiating
from competitors as shoe merchants are noticeable
conservative (Theis, 2006). The intention to offer
MC-service for a retailer might be to enhance his
service and performance in order to offer benefit to
the customer. By that, he could increase loyalty and
retention and create a new image to differentiate
from competition.
3.2 Business Benefits
The retail ties in basic value creation activities of
other parties – namely the manufacturer of the shoe,
the additive manufacturing provider and the
customer. The individual benefits of these actors
depend on the chosen operator model. It also
impacts questions on copyright and data ownership.
Figure 3: Values for involved parties.
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The shoe manufacturer gives the shoes to the
retailer. Ideally and due to the fact that a sole has to
be assembled to the shoe, these shoes leave the
manufacturers facilities before the native sole is
attached. The additive manufacturers would let the
retailer rent AM annexes, so that they could be
placed inside the store for attraction purposes. The
customer invests time, effort and money and leaves
interaction data as well as a certain amount of
personal data (e.g. address, name). The retail in
return delivers value to these parties (see figure 3).
The manufacturer will profit essentially from the
integration of the customer. It could be particularly
interesting to recognize, what the customers use the
shoe for. As the ability of the customer to directly
manipulate a product that once a huge brand and
manufacturer was in charge of, this integration
means a shift to democratizing the way products are
created. The manufacturer would have a stake in this
as this provides an immediate access to customer
needs and innovation ideas. He could react on this
with changes on his assortment. Moreover such an
approach offers valuable differentiation aspects from
competition.
The scenario opens a new market for the additive
manufacturer. It also benefits from the predictability
of the production needs. As he is mainly involved in
industrial projects, where requirements differ hourly,
this makes a difference: after initial requirements
engineering it will become a routine and a self-up-
keeping source of revenue. Entering new markets
and addressing new target groups means as well a
growing independence of AM producers from large
scale industry.
The retail itself gains insights into evolving
needs and trends of its customers. This could be
transformed into better marketing and advice but
should also be used to improve the creation of a
compelling customer experience.
3.3 Customer Benefits
The benefits for the customer are twofold. Merle et
al. (2010) allocate the values from the customer
perspective to co-design on the one side and product
value on the other (compare table 1). While
utilitarian, uniqueness and self-expressiveness value
are defined as product-related, hedonic and creative
achievement value are assigned to the co-creation-
process. Following it will be argued that all values
are determined in both co-creation and product
experience.
Utilitarian value is related to the product’s fit to
individual requirements (Dellaert and Dabholkar,
2009). It rises when the customized product provides
higher values than any standard product (Tseng and
Jiao, 2001). This is achieved through the fit of style,
function and physical fit (Piller, 2004). Moreover,
the co-creation itself increases the utilitarian benefit.
As the customer has to explore the solution space, he
dives deeper into the subject. Not only does this
convey information on the domain (of shoes and
potential key value attributes) but also does it
stimulate reflections on his needs. This facilitates the
customization decisions.
Apart from that, psychological effects need to be
considered. They consist in the symbolic meaning of
the products uniqueness. Autonomy and uniqueness
rise from the range of the solution space. Studies of
Sinclair and Campbell (2009) revealed that
customers doubt that no other would have made the
exact changes to a pre-existing model that they
carried out. For the design for AM, the uniqueness
value is highly increased due to the freedom of
creation.
Self-expression may be considered a life goal, so
to say a long-term desire and motivation that
justifies the end goal. Co-creation targets the self-
fulfillment and the creative engagement. Self-
expression describes also how the customer wants to
feel during the co-creation and may therefore be
considered as an experience goal. It mainly causes
that the customer perceives an increased quality of
the product after customization (Füller et al., 2011).
Competency, task and process enjoyment mainly
shape these emotions. The self-expressiveness value
of the final product helps the customer to
differentiate from other consumers. It is proposed
that this is motivated from counter-conformity
attempts (Tian et al., 2001). Creating value with
solutions for own needs and requirements increases
this self-congruity which results in higher
satisfaction. At the same time, customers tend to
choose products which reflect their self-perception
(status, taste, style) (Chang et al., 2009); (Chang and
Chen, 2009).
Emotions and mood impair the satisfaction
essentially (Jones, Reynolds, & Arnold, 2006). The
co-creation experience has a high impact on the
perceived value of the product and the underlying
end goals. The hedonic values are correlated with
the customer satisfaction with the product.
Additional value rises with the recognition and
admiration when the customized product is shown to
peers.
The creative achievement value may be
perceived as the fulfillment of a life goal. It is
related to the efforts the customer had to take. This
perception is influenced by both store and design
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Table 1: Perceived benefits for the customer during and after customization process.
Co-creation Product usage
utilitarian value
explore options,
reflect on own requirements and needs,
understand domain-related correlations
aesthetic, functional fit, congruency
uniqueness value
motivator to take the efforts,
depends on the variety of options
better fit to personal unique situations than any
standard product
self-expressiveness
value
as an innovator, creator, designer
(life goals)
reflects attitude and self-perception
hedonic value
entertainment, quality time,
enjoyment, fun
more pleasant to use,
recognition and admiration of peers
creative achievement
value
accomplishment of creative task,
supported by small rewards along the way
pride-of-authorship
of the customization process (e.g. supported by
interactive media). Customers will be proud, if the
efforts are rewarded with surprisingly good
outcomes (Franke et al., 2008; Weiner, 1985). Pride-
of-authorship nurtures satisfaction with the product.
This affects the way the customer uses the product,
the feelings that are connected with it and the way
he presents it to others. These feelings are well
suited for positive-word-of-mouth advertising and
for viral marketing attempts.
3.4 Solution Space Development
In order to provide the biggest benefit for the
customer, the customization operator must identify
the key value attributes that on the one hand
influence the buying behavior and on the other
reflect in which the target group differs the most. In
the use case of this paper we assume that customers
base their purchase decisions on sole features
including e.g. style, impermeability, resistance to
slippage, flexibility, foot protection, breathability.
Six attributes sum up these requirements: color,
material, shape, inner structure of the sole, tread and
method of attaching the sole to the shoe.
The presented scenario focuses on offering color,
material, shape and tread as customizable features,
leaving behind those attributes that would not
considerably increase the perceived value for the
customer. These four dimensions cover modification
of quality, size, look, functionality and contribute to
additional service propositions such as unique
packaging and gimmicks. Thus it comprises all
kinds of values, which a product bundles.
3.5 Toolkit Development
3.5.1 Need for an AM-Toolkit
Pushing the boundaries of MC with AM, on the first
sight this sounds like a great achievement. The chal-
lenge behind is to on the one side make the solution
space accessible for the customer and on the other
make sure that the design freedom would not
overwhelm the him.
If unconstrained freedom shall be given to the
co-creation, how can the customer make use of it? It
has to be considered that he might lack in
professional skills of designing his product. Or even
earlier in the process, he might not even feel inspired
or creative enough to approach such a design task.
An interactive system, the toolkit, comes in
handy at that point. It acts on the interface between
customer and production. It enables the customer to
transform wishes and ideas into certain product
specifications or design (see figure 4). That is, he
reaches his end-goal of customizing the shoe. In the
peculiar context of AM, the toolkit would need to:
make the solution space accessible
provide easy to use design tools
inspire and entertain, in order to lower the
perceived effort for the customer
consider manufacturing issues (that is unstick the
supplier’s information for the customer)
organize the data-exchange with the AM
machine
enable the customer to fulfill the co-creation by
ordering the manufacture of his product.
The toolkit must communicate its potential for co-
creation. This effect has to take place in the need
recognition phase in order to stimulate the
customer’s desire for self-expression. The overall
intention must be communicated, the way of
interaction must attract people and potential
achievements must be presented since it may occur
that the customer does not foresee the concrete
outcome of his creation.
Generally, the customer will tackle the
customization with high involvement due to the fact
that he wants to realize his needs and ideas in order
to acquire a better fit than the available standard
product. As long as the toolkit does not deceive him,
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he will be willing to invest time, engagement and
money. Research should collect data on where this
acceptance reaches its limits.
Moreover, the toolkit ties in the data of all parties
involved. This requires an integration of enterprise
specific applications, e.g. ERP- and CRM-systems.
The integration of social web and communities can
raise additional value. Depending on the product
category and the customization aim it could also
help to connect the toolkit to online databases of 3D-
models available for download.
Figure 4: Main responsibilities of the toolkit.
3.5.2 Implications on Interface Design
The interface design of the toolkit is a decisive
criterion for success. It essentially shapes the
experience. Its relevance for the creation of benefits
for the customer has been shown. This does account
for business goals as well: If the entertainment and
challenge by the co-creation-task are taken in
positively, even customers’ willingness to pay
higher prizes increases (Franke and Schreier, 2010);
(Merle et al., 2010). The modern interaction design
theory pays immense attention to the requirements
of users, users’ tasks and context of use.
Offering the co-creation as active MC has to deal
with the fact that the customer might lack in design-
related skills. Customers that engage in MC
activities have daily contact with web browsing, e-
mail, social networking, social messaging services,
Microsoft Office software as well as other
applications (Bauer, 2010); (Füller et al., 2011).
Even though that favors the technology readiness of
the customers, they still might perceive the efforts as
high transaction costs. Employees in the store can
eliminate that by supporting the customer.
Nonetheless, the system has to provide the customer
with design opportunities and ensure the
manufacturability.
Engaging AM as the production method
predetermines that a 3D-modell has to come out of
the design process. To enable the customer to make
use of the design freedom, intuitive interaction
approaches (e.g. using a touch screen) that facilitate
the design activities and support metaphors (e.g. of
formative manufacturing as it is known by the
customer) have to be considered. Engaging pleasant
and suitable metaphors and topics help to focus the
attention of the customer. Additionally they help rise
positive associations and positive feelings. Ideally
this leads to a linkage of compelling experiences
with the brand or store.
Furthermore, locating the toolkit in the retail
environment implies that noise, rush and light might
negatively impair the process and rob the customer’s
attention.
3.5.3 Permit Customization Actions
It is of major importance to guide the user through
specific customization possibilities, to inspire and
encourage him to pursue the process and to support
his design.
Concrete actions may stimulate the customer’s
involvement. Promotion, campaigns and claims
should seek to address the life goals of the customer
and emphasize the experience, which the
customization leverages. The issued appeals could
target the expression of personality, self-confidence
or even environmental consciousness (e.g. the AM
technology is power-saving compared to the
standard production). The decision in favor of any of
the proposed means must be based on the customer’s
attitudes and goals.
Employees, signage and toolkit have to introduce
the customer to the domain of customization and
present the solution space. It is important to
overcome doubts. In the given case, this means
primarily showing examples of customizations by
other clients. Related to that, an introduction to AM
would come in handy. As this technology is
probably not well known to the customer, it is
accompanied by a certain fascination and awakes his
curiosity. Even if this presentation does not lead into
co-creation, it will have stimulated that the customer
talks about it. Retail has the means to make the
customer experience the customization dimensions,
for example by touching material samples, testing a
customized sole or watching the production process
in a show-annex.
In order to lock-in the customer for the co-
creation phase, the toolkit has to engage the
customer to become creative. If his intrinsic
motivation already does so, the toolkit at least has to
keep him motivated. That is why the interaction with
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the toolkit has to be easy. Ideally it is easier than the
customer would have thought after seeing the
customizations of others. Such a surprise could
finally convince the customer to try it out.
3.5.4 Choice Navigation
The toolkit needs to provide guidance to the
customer when navigating through the solution
space. This can be achieved by structuring the
process meaningful and conveying information
about the domain (e.g. with the help of third parties).
Necessary information must be delivered wisely in
the correct context. It could ask for need-oriented
potential use cases of the shoe (such as sports,
business, clubbing) in order to transform the
technical specifications into a decision aid that is
compatible with the users’ mind setting, language
and mental model.
The operation on the system should be supported
by well-chosen interaction patterns. The toolkit can
take advantage of the retailing context in order to
facilitate and enhance the co-creation process for the
customer. Enabled through e.g. RFID-technology,
physical interaction with a shoe could be tracked.
Thanks to this information the toolkit would know
about the shoe model and the chosen size. A similar
technique could support choice of materials and
colors. Especially in the unknown area of AM,
touching material and surface samples provides a
compelling experience.
One could call this some kind of a push-and-pull-
discourse of customer and terminal-system. The
display of information reacts on the customer’s
testing of the product and samples. Descriptions can
help him discover his own preferences and compare
it to the opportunities provided in the solution space.
This prepares the ground for his purchase decisions.
So far this applies mainly to rational choices,
such as deciding on a material with cushioning
effect. The emotional choice when it comes to
design with shapes or text insets is more difficult to
direct. Sinclair and Campbell (2009) studied whether
participants would prefer sketching or 3d-modelling.
It turned out they preferred to manipulate parameters
of a 3d-object over sketching, even though they
found their design intent better communicated in the
own sketch. Many existing toolkits provide poor
visualizations. One flaw is the inaccuracy of the
representation which partly doesn’t even adapt to the
changes that the customer makes. On the one hand,
AM as method of production already suggests a 3D-
visualization of the object of interest. It may
nonetheless not be a good basis for customization
interactions. Research should focus on this topic.
Continuative approaches of letting users
manipulate 3D-models with touch interaction are
known from the iPad App 123D Sculpt (Autodesk).
The proposed interaction on rubbing on models
surface via a touch screen is convincing from an
interaction designer’s point of view. Unfortunately
there is no data available on the acceptance of that
interaction paradigm. It seems promising to enhance
these interaction patterns with real interactions.
The case of outsole customization offers one
major benefit: for a major part, the customization
can take place in 2d-space. The flat design can later
be extruded into the third dimension. In this way,
images could be drawn on screens to later be
extruded. They could also be integrated into the
modeling-process as a height map. Drawings and
pictures could give texture to the models - photos
could be taken right away at the terminal.
The integration of social networks could deliver
additional benefit. Examples could be:
allowing users to post different designs online in
order to get feedback from peers (value through peer
recognition)
establish an online community where lead users
could answer questions of novice users (reputation
in the community)
allow voting and commenting on best designs
and user-galleries (online dwell times)
collect additional data about preferences,
interest, personal data (usable for collaborative
filtering and reasoning about correlations)
4 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE
RESEARCH
Within this paper it was explained that additive
manufacturing (AM) shows potential to be an
extension of the blended shopping concept. Until
now, this is not commercially implemented. The
advantages of the customized blended shopping
concept were described. Merchants and AM
producer will only be able to organize and offer such
consumer added value via web platforms. The
chosen shoe sole use case addresses a scenario
where the customized product is an integral part of a
mass product. This causes besides others logistic,
legal and management problems.
Producing individualized accessories as
independent parts of mass products would overcome
e.g. assembling problems but would give mass
ENHANCINGTHEBLENDEDSHOPPINGCONCEPTWITHADDITIVEMANUFACTURINGTECHNOLOGIES-
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products an individual look. This can be viewed as
an extended value chain of mass products.
Nevertheless process and data standards need to
be adopted or developed in order to be able to offer
an individualization space limited by the fitting mass
product and production restrictions, to enable
customers to easily configure an accessory and to
hand over the data to production. Underlying logistic
and management processes need to be adopted.
Further considerations need to be drawn on potential
operator models and their implications. Finally a
demonstrator making use of latest internet
technology is needed to visualize the possibilities
and advantages of such a concept.
These research gaps will be subject of a research
project funded by the German Ministry of
Economics and Technology (BMWI).
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