Analysis of cultural gap for customized products

Footwear mass customisation had a concrete realization in EUROShoE, a European research project. The experience of three years of research in footwear sector from the point of view of technology innovation, passing through all the phases of the production cycle and the different loom to the customisation are summarized. In particular the validation phase will be illustrated. Several potential customers had their feet scanned and questions asked in order to determine how to optimise the pair of customized shoes without trying them on. The cultural difficulties of approach for a common customer to the concept of a customised product will be analysed. The human being is an open system since he exchanges information with the environment, but he is also a close system as he can auto-organize himself. This human system receives the biological inheritance from his ancestors and he builds his cultural heritage during his life looking at the environment and repeat it, doing an active selection of artefacts and institutions and create his own culture baggage replicating just those experiences that can produce a positive and complex conscious state. Using the interview method an understanding if the cultural heritage of the users is adaptive to change some conceptual frames in market and way of consume. We interview 50 people (25 men and 25 women), of different age and social level, who have already had a pair of personal shoes, and we analyze which barriers the culture could build. The customer has changed his approach to the market, passing through the barter to the first dark shop where going in to have specific goods with no choice; from the first window shops where he could watch and desire different supplies to the huge brilliant malls. But now, the new mass customisation paradigm shows the user new frontiers to be crossed: decide to have one article without try it on, or taste, smell or even touch. The starting point is turned upside down: we determine the jumps that the customer has to do passing in a new modality.