Mass customization retailers grow more than ten times as fast as online sales in general, NYT report says

Just in time for Christmas, the New York Times had a large article on the growing trend to give a mass-customized Christmas gift.

In the article, reporter Claire Cain Miller provides a nice overview of the most popular one-of-a-kind Christmas ideas. Her claim:

"Searching for meaning beyond a price tag, more holiday shoppers are giving custom-made gifts this year. But adding the personal touch doesn’t mean that gift-givers have to break out the knitting needles, haul out the scrapbook supplies or fire up the oven and start baking." Instead, mass customization on the web is doing the job.

The article shows the appeal and the strong growth of mass customization online:

While in general, e-commerce sales have grown only 4 percent this season, according to comScore, and offline retail sales have barely grown at all, sales of customized items did skyrocket, according to examples at the NYT article:

• CafePress and Scrapblog have each reported 80 percent increases in sales this holiday season compared with last year.
• Orders at Spreadshirt have doubled.
• At Blurb, where people create their own photo or art books, sales are up 43 percent.
• Even at Blue Nile (customized jewelry), orders are up 20 percent this year -- despite the crises in this industry in general.

These reports confirm messages I got from German mass customization sites like MyMuesli and Chocri.

The NYT article also provides some great anecdotal evidence why consumers love mass customization:

Morgan Taylor, a nanny in San Francisco, did all her holiday shopping at Zazzle. The boy she cares for received a skateboard emblazoned with the name and mascot of his school, and the girl received an Avery binder decorated with pictures of her and her friends. Ms. Taylor gave her mother postage stamps personalized with Christmas trees and the family name, and her friends will receive monogrammed stationery.

“I was able to put on my personal touch and get something they could call their own,” Ms. Taylor said.

Read the full NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/business/23custom.html