Question 3: representativeness of studies

The authors conducted their study in Germany, showing relatively fair consumer behaviors. How would the result differ from their study in your home country?

I conjecture that this pricing method will not work in Taiwanese society for some reasons stated below. Consequently, the result of this research in Taiwan may be very different from that conducted in Germany.

Because the consumers in Taiwan are always shrewd and calculating. They seldom pay more pennies than the value of this product or service they perceive (internal price).

Furthermore, thanks to the development of computers and the Internet, more and more consumers tend to compare prices before making buying decisions. That is to say, the costs of products or services are no longer opaque to customers. Hence, the chance that the amount consumers pay will close to or even equal to the cost are bigger and thus increase the risk of financial losses.

In Poland or Eastern Europe this idea would not work:P People are still thinking that if you can get something for free, than why really pay for it? The attitude is different and way of thinking. There is little appreciation to other peoples hard work...

But to be honest, I believe that in most countries this would be the attitude. It is the upper class that would think first before paying the minimal amount. Or some saints. Or crazy people:)

I couldn’t give a complete and totally correct answer to that question unless I conducted a survey among Belgian consumers’ behaviors and preferences in this particular field but for example, there is a restaurant near Brussels which has applied this strategy and which claims that it is very profitable so I think that most of their customers, at least, behave fairly.

As Max just said, the results of the study can be very different from a country to another. I think that it is also the case between European countries. In my opinion it's not possible to answer correctly to this question, unless we base our answer on statistical data related to behavior in a country.

I think the study is representative for Germany and most European
countries... but only for those particular industries: restaurants,
cinemas: services or products that you have to pay for in the seller's
presence.
I doubt we would have the same picture for products paid online (like Microsoft Office as we discussed in a previous forum).

I think that the results of the study would be really linked to both the GDP/inhabitant of the country... And it will be different if we talk about online or offline PWYW...
But as other people said it is difficult to express something different from a mere opinion without more data.

To Max:

I see your point of view,
but don't you think Taiwenese have a sense of fairness too? I mean, would you really go into a restaurant and pay NOTHING? How would you feel?
For me as a European, I couldn't do it. I would at least pay something for the service and I would calculate the amount of money spent for buying the ingredients
(remember, the reference prices you know from the supermarket are different. Usually the restaurant can buy them much cheaper)

Instinctively I would say that too but I still think we have to be very carefull, people can be very different from country to country. The same outcome might be explained with other explanatory variables.

The results of the study can be very different from a country to another. Maybe from a region to another in the same country. I think it's really hard to give a correct answer to this question, some surveys will have to be conducted in other countries in order to get accurate results

As for the Dutch the main decisive factor would be if others are able to see or not. If they would be able to stay anonymous the price would be near to zero. In case of the restaurant example they would be willing to pay slightly above the amount of the production costs, but with a small margin.

The behavior of Italian is harder to estimate or detect a general tendency, since there are many differences between the regions. But if it's service related like in the restaurant example and they have a good time and wine they are very likely to pay a good price.

I agree with Chloé, even among different regions, the results can be significantly different.
I would not be able to say :"In France, people would definitly pay more than the original price" or "In France, people wouldn't pay anything at all"
It is a matter of behavior, context, economical conditions and many other variables.
However, i do believe that the relationship between the seller and the buyer influences how much the buyer is willing to pay...
This again brings us back to the online illegal downloading...

Felix_Humbaire wrote:I think that the results of the study would be really linked to both the GDP/inhabitant of the country... And it will be different if we talk about online or offline PWYW...
But as other people said it is difficult to express something different from a mere opinion without more data.

I agree with Felix. I think it links closer to GDP rather than cultural factors, so it relates to income more.

Rich men (and women) are not necessairly fairer ! The more money you have, the more money you want to have. Look at Scrooge for example, he wants to save on everything (so as to be the richest man in the cemetery?) I think the discrimination is psychograhic. If you carry this survey in places where everyone's rich, I think the results will be bad consumer behavior.

As it is relevant for Germany, I think this study will be representative for France, too.

Why do you think this study will be representative for France too Pierre? Could you give us some examples which can be especially relevant for French people?

Although there are always rich people who are cheap, I think in general you could say that in countries/regions with relatively high GDP per capita and with high living standards PWYW would have the same positive results.

I also think it really depends on the industry/type of product. I remember a friend of mine (Israeli that lives in Berlin) told me about this winery in Berlin that people can pay as much as they want, and I asked him - then why would you pay at all?! He said that he likes to go to that place often, sit with his friends, etc., so if he wants to come back a second time it would be relly rude to leave without paying. So the conclusion is that for places like this, that provide a good experience for customers and where there's an interaction with the sellers, customers will be willing to pay to show their appreciation and willingness to come back. - Not only in Germany, if it's a good and fun place with nice owners I think it would also work in Tel Aviv for example- even if only for the novelty of the idea and the word-of-mouth of "this new cool thing in town"...

Could we compare the PWYW system to the tip system? Behaviors differ depending on which country customers are from. In France customers don't have to give tips to the waiter/waitress. The result is that nobody does even though French people are not in France. However when strangers come to France they give some tips because they are used to in their country, like in the United States. So I think that each country has its own cultural relation with money and the sucess or not from PWYW depends on theses cultures and values. We therefore need to study deeply each country to evaluate the profitability of PWYW.

Well, in the US we see that it works....

...but in Venezuela, I'm not so sure. The consumers there have a very similar attitude to what Max said about people here in Tawain... but still, they would pay resonably if there is face-to-face interaction, but if its through other methods, they'll go for the lowest possible payment.

Generally speaking PWYW would be reasonably high in Canada. For example, in a restaurant, people are accustomed to paying a 15% tip for service. In this case, it seems people would be willing to pay quite a bit.

In the Radiohead example, I think PWYW would be successful. Mainly because the band is ridiculously popular and well established. Out of loyalty to the band, they would be likely to pay for the album. For new music though, I'm not so sure. Like the rest of the world, I think people have become accustomed to downloading free music so without the loyalty factor, PWYW might have limited success.

I think that fair consumers behaviours depend on the different nationalities for shure but also depend on different educations that people have received in their childrenhood too. For Belgium people, I will say it depends on the personnality and the guiltiness of using a product/ a service for free as for every country.

In a small country such as palau, i believe the majority for consumers would base it on their satisfaction. People from my country rely on the importation of products which are priced relatively high however it does not stop the consumers from purchasing these products. For example, electronic products are highly in demand. There are the low end electronic products and the high end electronic products, i would say that most consumers would go for a more reliable and satisfactory product (this is excluding the high school students who i believe are not educated consumers but just looking for a cheap product to satisfy their wants).

Like the in question 2, I think here is very important the determinants for a successful implementation of PWYW. I assume again the most important determinants are Fairness and Income.
In a country with a customer's low purchising power (developing country), I think the PWYW would be totally unsuccessful, because in those markets there are always many customers who wants a product for a very low price (even if the product has a high value). Maybe some of the customers would take advantage of the situation and will resort to the arbitration, buying cheap and reselling the same product in another place.

florent_lefevre wrote:Rich men (and women) are not necessairly fairer ! The more money you have, the more money you want to have. Look at Scrooge for example, he wants to save on everything (so as to be the richest man in the cemetery?) I think the discrimination is psychograhic. If you carry this survey in places where everyone's rich, I think the results will be bad consumer behavior.

I just wanted to say that I love this example

And I agree with Florent, it is not important how much money you have... Maybe how happy in your life you are?