Support for the social dimension of shopping through web based sales configurators

Mass Customizers (MCs) often sell personalized products through Web Based Sales Configurators (WBSCs). Recently, a number of them have connected their WBSCs with Social Software Applications (SSAs). This is not surprising since SSAs provide an interactive and socially rich shopping experience, which makes shopping on WBSCs more similar to retail shopping experiences. Even though interaction with customers is a distinctive characteristic of MCs, research on the use of SSAs by MCs is very limited. The present paper reports the preliminary results of research that aims to (i) describe how existing WBSCs connect with SSAs, (ii) understand which stages of the configuration-shopping process are supported by the different WBSCs-SSAs connections, and (iii) explain how the different WBSCs-SSAs connections support fulfilment of the needs for social feedback and for social involvement that WBSC users perceive during their shopping experiences.