Personalization and Customization - good article to read

I have found out this article named "The failure of customization: or why people don't buy Jeans online". Even it is an old one but in this article, the authors provide deep knowledge on personalization and customization.

The word, customization and personalization are sometimes used interchangeably but e-commerce analysts make it distinct: with customization, the users are active but with personalization, users are passive.

David J.Reibstein pointed out some examples of companies who have done well on online customization, like Dell's computer, Orbitz.com, Amazon....They are built-to-order sites! But in the Marketing professor Fader's point of view, these built-to-order sites are not always offer true customization. The customization actually takes place only in the selection and shipping processes.

For more details of the discussion, please refer to here.