Chair: Pay-What-you-Want – A Field Experiment on Anonymity and Reference Price Cues

Pay-what-you-want (PwYw) is an empirically underresearched pricing method in which consumers have full control over the price they pay. The social norms of perceived anonymity of the payment and reference price cues are expected to affect how much customers pay. A 2x2 field experiment shows that reference prices but also payment anonymity influence the price paid significantly even when the purchase decision phase occurs online. The sales revenues of the best condition beat the worst by 116%. The experiment increased comparable year-to-year sales by 45%, net sales margin by 40% and increased new customer attraction rate by 28%.