Smaller retailers use the web to tap into “Made for me,” too

It isn’t only retail’s giants that are using the web to tap into consumers’ desire for made-for-me products. Much more diminutively-sized retail operations are using the Internet to transform shoppers’ interest in custom and personalized goods into a profitable business. If merchants can broaden market reach, manufacture cost-effectively and quickly and accurately automate the capture of order specifications, they are finding can deliver a product for which consumers will pay a premium.

One of the latest online retailers to get into the custom product business with the launch of personalized cookie tins on its site in October is four year-old cookie gift site ChipnDough.com. With annual revenues in the neighborhood of $1 million, the company spent 18 months to develop a web application that lets customers design their own cookie tin lid online.

With its own warehouse and 24/7 baking capacity, the company already had refined order taking and fulfillment in its cookie business to the point of overnight delivery, if requested -- using standard tins, baskets, and containers. The custom application and the fabrication system developed around it haven’t slowed that down, says Snyder. Yet an earlier experiment in providing personalized cookie tins in volume to corporate customers floundered on the use of e-mail to communicate customers’ design specs.

To create customized tin lids bearing corporate graphics or logos, “We had to have an artist do the graphics, then send a jpeg back to the customer for any changes, wait to hear form them and maybe even send a sample tin. We didn’t want to get stuck doing onesies and twosies by e-mail because it was a nightmare,” says Snyder.

ChipnDough solved the problem with its internally-developed application that lets customers do the design work on tin lids themselves. After customers select the cookie assortment they want, they enter the online feature, pick a background, pick graphics from clips art amiable on the site, or upload their own photos and graphics digitally.

Once uploaded, the photos and graphics can be scaled and placed on the tin by the consumer according to his or her preference. Text can be added to the design, with the choice of more than 150 type fonts in 40 ink colors. Then the design and artwork can be saved on the site in a “My library” account for future use. Snyder adds that two trends – increasing broadband penetration and digital camera use – are helping to support the design application’s use.

On average, ChipnDough’s margin on the custom tin product is about 15% higher than on the same number of cookies in a generic container. “This model would not work anywhere but on the Internet,” says Snyder.