How sweet it is: Picking your own mix

Chicago-based Fannie May Candies revved up its web site in time for Valentine’s Day with an IBM technology-powered “Create your own assortment” feature. It not only allows shoppers to buy chocolates online, but also to choose the box and fill it with a customized selection of goodies, thus ensuring that they’ll never wind up with chocolate-covered nougat again–that is, unless they want to. The feature, part of a recent web site redesign by Capita Technologies, is part of the nation’s biggest retail candy store chain’s push to grow its customer base by boosting its web presence.