Are We Ready For The Market Of One?

A few weeks back I heard the term in one of my marketing classes that immediately left me intrigued: market of one, a term that I had never heard before then.  A market of one could be interpreted in different ways but it is basically the concept that e-tailers (although is not limited to them) are able to customize ads, products and services to specific customers rather than to customer segments.

So why was I intrigued? well, this type of idea really benefits both the consumers and sellers.  How? you ask.  First, consumers would be getting ads for things they really want instead of random ads... customers might not see the ad as a bad thing if it targets a real need.  Furthermore ads would be more efficient and effective for the sellers, they will not be showing the wrong ad to the wrong customer, and when they do show an ad it is likely to get a click-through because it's relevant to the consumer.

Second, customization is something that many customers like or want and that means that there could be a "niche" business opportunity.  Nike's NIKEiD store is a great example of a seller offering customized products to customers.

There are more benefits, but as I kept looking and analyzing them I started to see a series of potential problems which made me question if we are ready for this style of market.  There are two primary issues: privacy and manufacturing capabilities.

Over the last few months there have been a number of privacy concerns raised around Facebook and Google; privacy is certainly a hot topic and is not without reason.  Every day certain companies gather more and more data on people, data that can be used for good or bad things.  The concept of marketing to specific individuals requires a lot of information which the consumers might not be willing to share.  The lack of quality information on consumers would not allow systems to improve beyond what companies like Amazon currently do (Amazon's Suggestion system).

Customization also requires companies to be able to reproduce what consumers want.  Product customization is not a new concept, however many have failed while trying to implement it.  The issue always seems to be traced back to the amount of offerings.  Sellers, sometimes, offer virtually unlimited options which is not necessarily good, a particular combination can result in unit loss for the seller.  Companies need to be reminded that customers normally don't know exactly what they want and that is why they have to limit their options.  Furthermore, most mass producing facilities will have a hard time tweaking their facilities to accommodate for custom orders.  In the end it might cost more to offer customizations than the gain opportunities.

So are we ready for the true market of one? I think not.  Although there is evidence that shows we are heading in the right direction.  A Business Week article from back in 2002 discussed how some companies were tweaking their solutions to be able to reach what they called "a mass market of one".  Companies discussed in the article improved on failed business models, but looking at the current stage, nearly 8 years later, I don't see a lot improvement.

This is a topic that I've only looked at for the last two weeks and it is very interesting, there are certainly many things I haven't covered but I'm wondering when will we leap to a true market of one.  A place where browsing online would be like watching a wish list that I didn't have to put together.