 A pay-what-you-want pricing model for restaurantsVinaysingh Chawan International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2019, vol. 32, issue 4, 431-449 Abstract: A new method of pricing, known as pay-what-you-want (PWYW) has been successfully used in many contexts in the recent past. Success stories are in restaurants, museums, music albums, software, etc. The method where the buyer selects the price, possibly a zero price, and the seller accepts it, is a bit counter intuitive. Quite surprisingly, the PWYW pricing method has been used successfully, and some businesses have adopted it for selling their goods. We study the economic rationale behind the success of the PWYW pricing method, and analyse different situations using a simple model. Results show that the PWYW pricing method can be successful when there is a large proportion of fair-minded consumers, and a lesser proportion of free-loaders. Also, though a low marginal cost is beneficial for a PWYW method, it is not necessary. Sellers can choose to use PWYW pricing with reference prices that induce, but not bind, consumers to pay an appropriate price. Also, setting a minimum threshold price alleviates the problem of free-loaders, and the PWYW pricing method can be used profitably in the long run. Keywords: pay-what-you-want; PWYW; pricing; price discrimination; willingness to pay; price discovery mechanism. (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijsoma:v:32:y:2019:i:4:p:431-449 Access Statistics for this article More articles in International Journal of Services and Operations Management from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd |
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