The effect of product value and flow experience on willingness to pay, purchase probability in online mass customization

Mass customization strategy has been a remedy for today's consumers that have unique demands and aspire to express themselves with products they consume, as well as for enterprises that consider individual traits of consumers on the one hand and try to keep their costs low on the other hand. In mass customization, customers have opportunity to design a product they wish to purchase through co-design toolkits available on the website offering the mass customization service. In this process, the organization of design experience is as important as the properties of the customized product. This research aims to identify the effects of perceived product value and flow experience during product design on willingness to pay and purchase probability in online mass customization, and introduces a model to achieve this aim. The participants, selected via snowball sampling on social media were directed to NikeId custom shoe website; were asked to design shoes to their taste. After the design experience was completed, the participants were asked to complete the questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the relationship between variables in the model. The analyses suggest that flow experience that customers gain during designing their product on a mass customization website has a direct effect on their willingness to pay and an indirect effect on purchase probability through the mediating role of perceived value of mass customized products. Furthermore, perceived value of a mass customized product has a significant effect on purchase probability and no effect on willingness to pay found in the analyses. Keywords: Mass Customization, Flow Experience, Purchase Probability,Willingness to Pay, Online Shopping