An Aldersonian explanation of twenty‐first century “mass customization”

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate four of Alderson's key concepts to show how they explain mass customization and extend traditional consumer goods classifications. The four concepts are: heterogeneous markets, transvections, the principle of postponement, and routinized transactions. Design/methodology/approach – In this exploratory paper, Alderson's main concepts are compared and contrasted with today's marketing phenomena and are used for updating traditional consumer goods categorizations. Findings – The main concepts of Aldersonian theory discussed in the paper – heterogeneous markets, transvections, postponement and routinized transactions – are a remarkably good fit with today's “mass customization” and logically lead to an enhanced of definition of consumer goods classifications. Research limitations/implications – This is a conceptual paper meant to emphasize the apparent explanatory power of Alderson's concepts to today's marketing phenomena. Formal propositions have not been developed and tested. Practical implications – Traditional classifications of goods no longer accurately explain marketing phenomena arising from the growth of the internet and mass customization. Alderson's concepts provide an effective framework for explaining current phenomena and extending outmoded models. Originality/value – The four main Alderson concepts evaluated in this paper have not been emphasized as a group before, nor have they been utilized to help explain mass customization and extend traditional consumer goods classifications.