Empowering Consumer for the green transition while shopping for customized product

The European Union (EU) action plan, stated in Agenda 2050, provides directions for empowering consumers as active participants of sustainable transition. Accordingly, companies are called to support consumers in making sustainable choices by providing them with full access to reliable information on the sustainability value of their products or services. On the consumers’ side, a growing number of them are willing to pay premium prices for products with high sustainability value. This paper addresses the EU action plan for empowering customers while shopping for customized products via online sales configurators (OSCs). OSCs are end users’ tools designed with the purpose of proactively guiding consumers toward configuration solutions that best fulfill their idiosyncratic needs. The present study empirically examines a sample of active OSCs to assess whether and to what extent they support customers in making sustainable choices while shopping for configurable products. Findings from this study detect what functionalities should be implemented in OSCs to guide customers’ towards “sustainable configuration”. Regarding managerial implications rely on insights for mass customizers on what action can be adopted to empower consumers’ awareness on sustainability value of product configuration while shopping for personalized products.