7. Co-creation of the Journey

The customer journey has traditionally been in the hands of the producers, who have sought to understand and manage customer behaviour as a value-creating activity by curating the selling environment. However, these retail routes and relationships have seen a change in the type and level of engagement with fashion and lifestyle consumers, to one of greater collaboration, in which consumers were first seen as more active co-consumers or ‘prosumers’ in a co-producing journey and later as co-creators of products, services and experiences driven by lived experiences and transactional dialogue. Co-creation represents a move away from a company-centric approach to the customer journey by highlighting a shared process of “creation” among actors. Ramaswamy and Gouillart (2010) define co-creation as the process of developing systems, products or services through collaboration with clients, managers, employees and stakeholders that all have an interest in the company. Some brands/companies build engagement platforms to engage consumers in valuable memorable experiences around the product, for example, Apple turned its stores into community focused “town squares” Apple Union Square or Apple Grove to showcase products in an inviting and inclusive way (Future Stores, 2024) to stimulate and accommodate interaction with consumers signalling the shift from a service mindset to an experiential mindset and defined value driven by human experience rather than service processes. These changes have resulted in a recalibration of power and control in the retail journey as consumers become more knowledgeable and powerful in the product design and retail process, imposing their unique personal direction on the journey driven by needs and wants and realigned values. This chapter examines the customer journey from a co-creating perspective and takes a critical position on problems of power and control between the various intermediaries located across the fashion value chain who facilitate the retail process.