Before or After? The Effects of Payment Decision Timing in Pay-What-You-Want Contexts
研究在“随心付”定价中，付款时机（产品交付前或后）如何影响消费者支付金额，发现高产品价值时交付后付款更高，低产品价值时效果减弱甚至逆转。
This research studies how payment decision timing—before versus after product delivery—influences consumer payment under pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing. The authors focus on situations where there is minimal change in consumer uncertainty regarding the product before versus after receiving it. The theoretical development suggests that people pay more after (vs. before) receiving the product when product value is high, but the effect is mitigated when product value is low and reversed when product value is sufficiently low. Results from a laboratory experiment and a field experiment lend support to the theoretical predictions, with preliminary evidence for the moderating effect of product value. An online experiment demonstrates the predicted payment decision timing effect at high product value and a reversal of the effect at low product value. Another online experiment extends the scope of the previous studies by examining PWYW transactions in a charitable donation context (which the authors label “contribute what you want”): the authors obtain evidence for the predicted payment decision timing effect for high product value and a mitigation of the effect for low product value, as well as process evidence for the theoretical mechanism. This work has implications for the management of PWYW schemes for firms, including nonprofits, social enterprises, and charities.