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PWYW Pricing ex post Consumption: A Sales Strategy for Experience Goods

Author

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  • Egbert, Henrik
  • Greiff, Matthias
  • Xhangolli, Kreshnik

Abstract

Pay What You Want (PWYW) pricing has received considerable attention recently. Empirical studies show that a PWYW pricing mechanism is able to increase a seller’s turnover and profit. This paper addresses PWYW pricing for bundles of experience goods. The paper shows that a PWYW pricing mechanism, if applied ex post consumption, separates the decision to buy from the decision how much to pay. Information asymmetries about the quality of the good are reduced during the act of consumption so that buyers are informed about the product’s quality when they decide how much to pay. As a consequence, risk-averse buyers who would otherwise refrain from purchasing under a fixed price mechanism, can be attracted to purchase under a PWYW pricing ex post consumption (PWYW-EPC) mechanism. In this case, the pricing mechanism itself constitutes a signal. The paper concludes that a PWYW pricing mechanism, applied ex post consumption, can be a profitable strategy for a seller if she sells bundles of experience goods and if she wants to attract risk-averse buyers for realizing economies of scale in production.

Suggested Citation

  • Egbert, Henrik & Greiff, Matthias & Xhangolli, Kreshnik, 2014. "PWYW Pricing ex post Consumption: A Sales Strategy for Experience Goods," MPRA Paper 53376, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:53376
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    Cited by:

    1. Greiff, Matthias & Egbert, Henrik, 2016. "A Survey of the Empirical Evidence on PWYW Pricing," MPRA Paper 68693, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Richard Reisman & Marco Bertini, 2018. "A novel architecture to monetize digital offerings," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(6), pages 453-458, December.
    3. Anna Kukla-Gryz & Katarzyna Zagórska, 2017. "The strength of the anchoring effect on Pay What You Want payments: Evidence from a vignette experiment," Working Papers 2017-14, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    PWYW pricing; PWYW-EPC; asymmetric information; economies of scale; experience good; bundling; ex post consumption;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • D49 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Other
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing

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