Digitization also allows for increased customization of products and systems via selective database and demographic management. But the advantage is likely to go to major manufacturers, not to niche players. In spite of fragmentation, only the major manufacturers can afford to establish mass market appeal, and the advertising budgets to promote them to a mass audience. Digitization is leading to the creation of new distribution channels, which sometimes operate alongside the traditional ones, and sometimes threaten to replace them. But traditional distribution channels are by no means obsolete.
Traditional retailers allow customers to explore like products and make impulse purchases.
Digital marketing will have to provide a like or better value if it is to fully succeed. Digital marketing, via on-line capability, represents an opportunity for individual designers and design firms to directly reach a larger client base. The creation of virtual design consultancies already has begun. Designers are able to digitally form and dissolve design teams at will no matter where they may be geographically located. This trend will definitely increase as designers learn to use the Internet to transcend time and space.