Personalized and Customized...

“Personalisation is the footprint of Daisy Jewellery” touts the website of a UK-based company where you can design your own ring. With their beautiful collection of rings designed to stack together you can mix and match rings to create a special one just for you.

I have reviewed probably one hundred website where you can create-your-own this, and design-your-own that, and I’d have to rate this easy-to-use interactive website as one of the best!

The online process starts with selecting from a number of categories: sterling-silver band rings, 18 ct gold plated band rings, flowers and animal rings, heart rings, stone set rings, fresh water pearl rings, and the urban spacers collection. From there you drag and drop the rings you like into the right hand side of the window. To remove a selected ring, it’s as easy as dragging and dropping the ring to the outside of the window.

To rearrange your stack ring you simply drag, hold and drop the ring into your desired position. By a click of a button you can view your creation as an expanded or closed view. At the bottom of the interface, the rings you have purchased are showed individually and you are provided a tally of the final price.

The next step in the process really provides the icing on the cake…

Back in January, I told you about my business passion for writing about mass customization, personalization and one-to-one marketing. On the personal side, I also love chocolate. What could be better than combining my two passions to get customized chocolate, right!?

So I wrote about Chocri, a German based company, and recently expanded into the US, that allows you to create your own chocolate - and placed an order on the site. I concocted (and named) the following 3 bars:

• Tropical Dreams by Anita: milk chocolate with papaya cubes, cinnamon, organic flax seeds, coconut shavings and nougat
• Sweet Heat in Winter: milk chocolate with ginger, ground chilli, macadamia nuts, toffee and orange
• Anita’s Dark Decadence: dark chocolate with cappuccino chocolate drops, coffee, toasted hazelnuts, bourbon vanilla and raspberry

When I recently received my package, I couldn’t wait to dig in and taste my chocolate creations. What was my verdict?

I’ve reviewed many sites that offer mass customized products from both large and small companies alike. What I like best are those start-ups with founders behind them who have a passion for what they do.

The ArtOfJewels.com is such a company. It's a site where the power is in your hands to mix and match sparkling gemstones with exquisite 14k white or yellow gold mountings. You can drag and drop your way to personalized jewellery in their interactive design studio and start creating meaningful new memories by creating your own design. When you order from the site, you are assured that you are getting a custom jewel that is tailored to your exact taste with delivery being in 7 to 10 business days.

Based out of Huntington Beach, California the Art of Jewels is a small family operation that caters to each and every customer. Kavita Reddy runs the business with her two sisters. The three ladies have a passion for jewellery and always wanted to work together, so they made the business happen!

Although the gals started their business in 2007, the website went live in 2008. The way Kavita explains it, “it took some time to develop the technology required to do the drag and drop properly.” I have to agree that the online interface is easy to navigate and simple to use!

Here’s the story behind the business as it is described by Kavita…

OK guys, this blog post is for you, so listen up. If you want to step up your game and show your sweetie just how special she is, give her a gift for Valentine’s that’s personalized just for her. Here are my Top 5 personalized Valentine’s Day gift picks that will show your darling that she is one of a kind. You’ll actually be surprised when I tell you that two of my suggestions are actually (almost) FREE.

The tried and true Valentine’s Day gifts are roses, chocolate and champagne. Have you thought about considering a personalized version of each? Read on…

“Say it”, Literally - with Roses

Red roses are probably one of the most popular flowers for Valentine’s Day. At the website Speaking Roses, you can have a personalized message, her photo, your photo, or even a corporate logo embossed on rose petals. Unbelievable huh!? Their patented technology process allows for the printing of images, text and just about anything else on rose petals without harming or shortening the life of the flower – making it truly a unique gift. A 3 rose bouquet with “I love you” costs a reasonable $20 while a dozen sells for $75. The set up fee for a unique phrase, photo, logo, or icon costs $25.00 extra.

Customize your Chocolate

I’ve never met a woman who doesn’t like chocolate. So you’ll always be safe with this gift. I present 3 options:

• Hershey’s offers customers the ability to personalize their own chocolate bar wrappers not only for Valentine’s Day, but for birthdays, weddings, and a whole host of other occasions.
• At Chocri, you can go one step further and customize your own chocolate bar. Choose a chocolate base (white, dark or milk chocolate), and then add your favorites out of more than 100 toppings, including a Valentine’s Day message. Name your decadent creation, which will be printed on the package.
• At My M&Ms, you can choose the colour of your candy (white, pink, red, and more), add a personal message, and even upload a photo that will be printed on your candy. How very sweet!

There's more...

I’ve written extensively about custom food and drink products for humans and have provided numerous examples that have included customized chocolate, cereal, muesli, protein bars, drinks, and even food packaging.

Now, thanks to RedMoon Custom Pet Food, you can create your own mix of dog or cat food based on their specific nutritional requirements. Not only that, but you can custom fortify their food with supplements such as an immune/antioxidant booster, hip and joint reviver or a natural skin and coat supplement. As a final touch, you can even have each custom-blended bag named after your beloved furry friend, and soon you’ll be able to have your pet’s photo printed on each bag too. Awww, cute!

The site boasts that the natural ingredients used in RedMoon products are the finest available, and include regionally sourced antibiotic and hormone-free meats, whole raw fruits and vegetables and low glycemic carbohydrate sources such as yellow peas, plus all-natural chelated vitamins and minerals. Each base kibble recipe is slow cooked in small batches to preserve essential nutrients, and all products are gluten, gray, soy, wheat rice and corn free.

With processing facilities in Brainerd, Minnesota and Crossfield, Alberta, Canada, the company ensures they use local ingredients, and ships anywhere in North America too. How much does personalized pet food cost?

In business, my passion is writing about mass customization, personalization and one-to-one marketing. On the personal side, I love chocolate. So what could be better than combining my two passions to get customized chocolate!

I’ve written before about customizable packaging for chocolate, such as Dove and Hershey’s, but I have never before found a place that allows chocolate-lovers to create their own unique chocolate bar!

Founded in 2008 in Germany, and launched in the U.S. earlier this month, Chocri, lets customers create their own chocolate bar by choosing a base, adding toppings and then naming it, which will then be printed on the package. Whether you have conservative or curious tastes, there are over 100 toppings on the site so you can find the right flavour combination that’s just right for you! In addition, Chocri chocolates are all organic and fair trade, with 1% of sales donated to a charitable organization that cares for the needs of the children on the Ivory Coast (where cacao is produced).

The starting price for a bar is $7.90 US with toppings ranging from $0.10 for sea salt to $2.10 for real gold flakes, with a 3 bar minimum – either all the same or different. International shipping costs $6 with deliveries being made from Germany, where your personalized chocolate bar is produced. Orders are shipped within 2 weeks.

Curious, I decided to test drive the site…

In Part I of my post, I provided you with my picks for the best use of personalization in marketing campaigns in the following categories: best use of customer data, best use of technology, best use of social media, best personalized video, and “ahead of the curve”

For Part II of my story, I've listed my choices for the best customized products of the year. This is indeed a difficult task. Over two years ago when I first started writing on the topic, I had to search and scramble to find examples of mass customized products to cover. Now, two years later, I can barely keep up. If there was one category that was dominant for mass customization this past year, it was in home decor followed by fashion and footwear. The customization of food is also a strong category that is an up and coming sector.

Footwear and Fashion: Personalization from Payless. Sometimes you can find examples of personalization in the most unlikely places. On my annual excursion to the southern US, my first stop always includes a visit the mall where I hunt for interesting retail concepts. I was not only delightfully surprised, but downright amazed to find out that Payless Shoes offers custom dyed designer shoes! This footwear line is created by New York-based fashion designer Lela Rose.

You first start off by visiting a Payless store, where you are met with a 4 foot linear display, devoted totally to the Unforgettable Moments shoe collection. There are 13 or so shoe styles displayed, in every size that you can try on to make sure that they fit. Next, you choose from one of 64 colours that are represented by the satin swatch colour selection book. Colours range from the pale – such as taupe shimmer, or apricot - to the downright bold – rich mocha or deep emerald.

The customer’s order is placed and the hand-dyed shoes arrive within 10 business days at the store where you ordered it, or at home, if you ordered online. Here’s the best part - dyeing and shipping are included in the price. And, at $49.99 US or less – it’s well worth it for a custom product, made to your specifications. Apparently Payless is the only nationwide retailer to offer affordable special occasion satin designer shoes that are dyeable.

See my picks for other categories: gifts, home décor, food, and personal care…

This year has been tough for retail. Last year, retailers posted a sales decline of 2% and when results are tallied for 2009, both Nielsen and Deloitte expect no change in holiday sales this year. In the online world things were a little better, with Comscore reporting that e-commerce spending for the first 48 days of the November - December 2009 holiday season was up 4%.

There is one class of retailers however that have experienced a surge in sales - those that provide personalized and mass customized products online! According to yesterday’s article in the New York Times:

• Zazzle, CafePress and Scrapblog (a site for digital scrapbooking), all have reported a whopping 80% increase in sales this holiday season compared with last year.
• Orders at Spreadshirt where people can customize shirts, bags, umbrellas and even underwear, have doubled.
• At Blurb, where people create their own photo or art books, sales are up 43 percent.
• Custom orders are up 20% this year on Blue Nile where customers can design their own jewellery pieces.

Why the increase in sales?

With the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics being just 51 days away, we Canadians are feeling particularly proud. Olympic fever is catching on, especially here in Toronto where the Olympic Torch Relay has been making its way across the city these past few days.

South of the border, our American neighbours are also doing their best to promote the cause. Ralph Lauren is not only the official outfitter of the U.S. Olympic team, but so that you feel part of the action, lets you personalize your own garment by putting your name on the back and front of the Official Polo Shirt of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Or, you can support your team in style by choosing from dozens of flag choices for the classic polo or a fleece hoodie.

Here’s how the online process works. You first choose your garment: USA track jacket, skinny-fit flag polo, classic-fit polo, and even an oxford shirt, with prices ranging from $89.50 to $165 US. For the flag garment, you select your flag, size, and colour combination. You then get to see your own creation on a beautiful (or handsome) model.

Other personalized products are also offered:

Christmas is a week away, but you still have time to send out cards. Impossible you say? Read on. I have the perfect solution for sending out personalized Christmas and holiday cards. Or better still, send out a New Years’ card to be totally original!

Visit One of a Kind Greeting Cards.com where you can upload your addresses, pick a card, and personalize it with your own message. Then, a physical card will be printed and sent out with a real stamp and mailed to its destination. It’s that easy! Or, if you want to automate the whole process, input your list, choose a card, and then let the campaign manager do the rest.

There are literally thousands of cards from which to choose, for any purpose or occasion: Birthday, Thinking of You, Motivational, Sympathy, Welcome, Apology, Congratulations and lots more.

You can also get fancy with other advanced options:

In my last post I described the mass customized Barbie doll and wondered what happened to this initiative. Now I’ll provide my view as to why it didn’t perform as well as it should have, and reveal a similar project that was launched 10 years later by Mattel.

In business school we’re taught companies must innovate to stay ahead of their competitors and maintain their market share. It’s this strategy that has kept Barbie in the number one position in the industry. While market leaders innovate and attract customers who will part with their money in exchange for shiny new products, there is such a thing as being too far ahead of the curve.

Being so far ahead of the pack is risky and positions companies on the “bleeding edge”—and that can hurt. Hurt in the sense that a company loses credibility and money because customers just don’t “get it.”

The personalized Barbie was on the bleeding edge in 1997: eCommerce was in its infancy, and customers were not comfortable transacting online due to security issues. With a dial-up connection—not broadband, which is standard today—the user experience was not optimal. Just as crucial perhaps, the concept of mass customized products was a little too foreign for consumers at the time.

Seems that Mattel has come to the same conclusion...

The first blog post I wrote back in 2006 was titled “Why Barbie is the Inspiration for this Blog”:

“My fascination with mass customized products began when I purchased my very own made-to-order customized Barbie Doll on the Mattel web site in 1998. I was looking for a great Christmas present for my young god daughters at the time, and also bougt a gift for myself!

I configured my own Anita Barbie online by customizing it so that it looked like me. I was able to choose my Barbie's skin colour, hair colour, eye colour and outfit. To top it off, I was able to give the doll a personality profile by inputting her/my interests. My doll ...lives in a big city and spends a lot of time working. She's interested in computers, loves to surf the web and enjoys being with all of her friends. (Hey, that sounds like me!) Imagine, all of this, for only $39.99 U.S.!”

I always wondered what happened to the personalized Barbie. So I tracked down a member of the project team that developed the breakthrough mass-customized Barbie, or the My Design doll as it was called. This former Mattel employee confirmed that Barbie was indeed the first consumer mass-customized product produced at the time. With the combination and permutations of hair, eye, skin colour and outfit options offered online, this resulted in a matrix of 15,000 customization possibilities for the consumer. The freedom to configure a doll the way a girl wanted it, and representing all ethnicities, was very empowering and fit into the mantra that the Barbie could be anything you wanted her to be.

At the time, Mattel’s definition of a success was…

Launched in 2008 in Miami, Florida by three friends, Mix My Granola lets you customize your own organic, all natural granola mix from more than 75 ingredients such as fruits, nuts and flavour enhancers. The extensive ingredient list is quite impressive – and good for you too. But, for those of you who are not so hard core healthy, you can sweeten up your granola with organic gummy bears, jelly beans, chocolate espresso beans, candy corn, and peanut butter pretzel bites.

Not up to going through the customization process? No problem. A number of pre-mixes are offered and with such names such, Super Duper Detox, Lower Your Cholesterol, and Runner’s mix, there’s bound to be a mix that’s suited just for you.

The packaging is quite cool, coming in a tall cylinder that holds 16 oz. of granola ingredients, enough for 14 servings. On the site they tell you that a standard supermarket granola usually only contains 12 oz. So you are getting 33% more granola in comparison. The nutrition facts of your custom-made granola mix and its ingredient are also stated on the package so you know what you’re getting. Each label also includes an individual Mix-ID that allows you (or anyone else) to re-order your favourite mix by entering the Mix-ID online.

In terms of the online experience, the website is simply designed, is easy to navigate and has enticing bold images. Here’s how the online ordering process works:

Remember back in March I wrote about Spoonflower, where you could design and order your own unique fabric?

Well, I just received an update from them informing me that their marketplace is now open! Previously, the only buy-sell options available were to a) buy your own fabric, b) buy the fabric of the winner of their weekly design contest at Etsy, and then only for the week, and c) sell your designs on Etsy. Now you can both buy other unique designs and sell your own right on their website.

Emmanuelle Hertel, Managing Editor at One of Kind Publishing Inc., decided to try it out and let us know about the process…

You start out by creating your design as described in the previous Spoonflower post, then order a sample to proof. After you have approved it, you simply request that it be sold in the marketplace.

And it really is that simple. I ordered a swatch of my summery design, “Sexy Pink Kisses,” which arrived (carefully packaged in tissue) within the expected 15 days. It looked just like I wanted it to, so I signed into my free Spoonflower account, went to my design library, and clicked on “Design Details” under the one I wanted to post to the marketplace. This took me to a page where I could write a description of my design, designate it to two categories, and tag it by keywords. The next step was to check the box that says “I would like to sell this design to the public.” Voila! My design is now in the marketplace, available for anyone interested to purchase.

And, to top things off…

Remember how not too long ago I wrote about how you could potentially have an entire room decorated just with your designs? With your custom fabric upholstering your chairs and your custom rug adorning your floor? Well, Rooms By You is a site allowing you to do precisely that — except that it’s tailored for nurseries.

You start by choosing the style of nursery you’re going to be decorating, classic or contemporary, and then you are taken to the Adobe 3-D room designer, allowing you to view the entire room. Essentially a blank page, the room is detailed with various features specific to a nursery such as a crib, changing table, rocking chair, etc. The room is fully decorated, but all the decorations are left blank for you to fill in.

Choose from their large selection of designs (or upload your own, more on that later), by dragging and dropping any number of designs onto the white details, from baby quilts and bedding to curtain panels and wall art to night lights and lamp shades. You see the room brighten up as you customize it, coordinating and accenting the designs to suit your taste!

How much does it cost?