Analying The Factors And Mechanisms Of Influencing Customers To Choose The Customized Products

Mass customization is considered to be the dominant strategy of the enterprisesin the21stcentury. Many scholars have paid attentions on the study of masscustomization strategy for nearly20years. Based on an extended version of thetheory of planned behavior, we develop an integrated influencing factors model forthe customers’ willingness to buy customized products and elaborates the mechanismbehind these factors at the same time.The structure of this paper is organized as follows. Chapter one illustrates thepractical and theoretical background of the research question, what is the focus of ourstudy, what are the potential theoretical and practical contributions of the studyresults, while explains the design, content and overall structure arrangements of thepaper. Chapter two reviews the study of mass customization, carefully combing theprevious studies points, to identify the direction of research progress and gaps in masscustomization. The third chapter is a review of the theory of planned behaviorresearch combing the ins and outs of the theory of planned behavior, its development,and a detailed analysis of the mechanism of action, as well as in the empirical studyof application of this theoretical model. Chapter four presents the hypothesis of thearticle, based on literature review, the use of existing theory model, by logicaldeduction, formulates the12research hypothesis, and builds the research conceptmodel. The fifth chapter is the empirical part of the paper. The hypothesis is verifiedby two universities,498valid student questionnaire data. Chapter six is theconclusion generated from the empirical data, further elaborates the theoretical andpractical contributions, points out the deficiency of this paper, and finally gives thedirection in the future research.In this paper, the questionnaire survey was used for data collection, a total of700questionnaires were sent out while498valid ones were got back. The radio ofvalid questionnaire is71.14%. According to the data analysis, by using structuralequation modeling analysis, we get the following results:Firstly, there are three factors such as attitude subjective criteria and perceived behavioral control to have the direct impact for customer’s willingness to buycustomized product. That is when the customer holds a positive attitude, subjectiveview that other people can agree with his custom behavior, and for their ability todeliver customized products are more confident, they will actively participate inproduct customization, have a higher willingness to buy customized products. Theconclusion is consistent with the basic assumptions of the traditional theory ofplanned behavior. Research data show that among the three factors, customer attitudehas the strongest influence for the purchasing intention, subjective criteria has theminimum effect.Secondly, the data analysis results show that self-identity expressiveness caninfluence attitudes and thus indirectly affect the purchase intention, and self-identityexpressiveness has been proved to be an independent significance determinant ofintentions to buy. However, be different from the extended version of the theory ofplanned behavior, we find that customer social identity expressiveness does not havea direct impact on purchase intention but it can impact the subjective norm.Thirdly, in this paper, we prove the customer customization sensitivity and brandtrust can affect their attitude for customized products. If the customer customizationsensitivity is high, then he will have a more positive evaluation of the productcustomization, expect a higher effectiveness of customized products based onexpectations—value model, this higher expectation and evaluation lead to a positiveattitude. Also, if the customer has a trust for the corporate brand, this trust can lead topositive evaluations for product, thus affecting the attitude of customized products.Fourthly, the reference group has a positive influence on the formation ofcustomer subjective norm, there are three kinds of impact which the reference groupexert to the individual informational influence, utilitarian influence and the value ofexpression, through self-certification and self-improvement to affect the customer’ssubjective standard, for the corporate marketing policy, it is not enough alone for theindividual person, but also need to consider the social impact factors.Fifthly, customer product knowledge and corporate customized guidanceimpact the customer’s perceived behavioral control. When customer are familiar withthe customized products, they are confident with their abilities to complete the task, they will take part in the customization process actively, perceive more value in theengagement process. Customized guidance services can also improve customerself-efficacy, help customer complete the product customization successfully.The contributions of the study are showed as follows. Firstly, this researchnot only proposes an integrated influence factors model of the purchasing intentionfor customization products, but also tests and verifies through the empirical methodwith the questionnaires data, the results are benefit for the enterprises to seriouslyassess whether they have the conditions for the implementation of masscustomization. Secondly, the article examined the feasibility of the extendedversion of the theory of planned behavior, enriching the scope of application of thetheory, the research model has an important role in guiding mass customizationsystem design.Thirdly, this paper integrating various factors of consumer personalfactors, social influence, as well as business services, extends and deepens the studyperspective of the customization, this study will help the enterprises to seize thecustomer psychology requirement, forecasting and understanding of customerbehavior, providing the differentiated services for the customer.