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The growing popularity of customization is most evident among online ventures. That's because the Internet provides the way for customers to interact early and often with the making and design of the product.

It's also efficient because the Web site gives shoppers an immediate look at how their customized product would look. That wouldn't be true if someone were leafing through a catalog and making the same choices. What online shoppers are customizing:

Computers. In recent years, Apple Computer, Gateway and Hewlett-Packard followed Dell in offering online customers the chance to configure their PCs just the way they want them.
Most of Dell's sales are custom order, it says. "Dell proved customization was ideal for managing a limited number of interchangeable parts," says Michelle Adams, retail analyst at ComScore Networks.

Of the 16% of H-P's PCs that are sold directly, most are customized.

Clothing. Since it started selling custom-made pants on its Web site a year ago, Lands' End says it has reduced unwanted merchandise and increased profit margins on some items.
It has also increased customer choices. With all the possibilities, there are 4.5 billion variations of Lands' end chinos and jeans. "Our site allows the masses to get the perfect fit without hiring a tailor," Bass says.

The site, which has grown despite no advertising, lets shoppers enter measurements such as weight, height and hip size. A software program calculates the ideal dimensions of the pants and sends the information to a manufacturing plant in Mexico.

Custom-ordered pants cost $54 vs. $30 to $40 for non-customized pants on the Lands' End site. They ship in three weeks vs. one week for non-customized pants.

Lands' End, owned by Sears Roebuck, will begin selling custom-made men's dress shirts and dress pants online in November.

Other retailers are likely to follow. Several major apparel makers in the USA and Europe have contacted Archetype Solutions, which provides technology to Lands' End, about similar services, says Archetype President Jeff Luhnow.