Consumer behavior and willingness to pay in a real market experiment

Abstract

In this paper we present an A/B-Test where we scrutinize the consumer behavior and the willingness to pay of customers in a real online community portal. The customers of the treatment group could choose between two price-quantity options. The control group however could only choose one price-quantity-combination. It turned out that a higher number of variations does not necessarily lead to a higher sales volume. It was interesting to see that consumers decided for the option with the higher per unit price if the total amount is lower than the price of the ‘bulk pack’. Beside the economic results we gained essential experience in the conduct of real market online experiments. Particular the assignment and the recognition are crucial in order to perform a valid experiment. We found out that a sequential assignment and the incorporation of registered users yields the best results.