{"id":6673,"date":"2013-05-15T15:07:03","date_gmt":"2013-05-15T19:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/?p=6673"},"modified":"2015-05-04T15:20:35","modified_gmt":"2015-05-04T19:20:35","slug":"selling-products-online-pwiw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/2013\/05\/15\/selling-products-online-pwiw\/","title":{"rendered":"An Experiment in Selling Products Online using Pay What It’s Worth Pricing"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

\"After<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m curious about selling products online using PWIW and how it can work best. So, about six months ago I turned some communication tools I’d created over the years into products and began selling them in my store<\/a> using PWIW.<\/p>\n

Using PWIW for an Online Store<\/h2>\n

For my experiment, I wanted to figure out a strong way of selling a product online using PWIW. My first task (I felt) was to find software to help me with the buying and selling of my products. I needed a shopping cart tool to enable the sales transaction and to provide the product to buyers after sale. After doing research I decided upon using e-junkie<\/a>. I have been happy with this decision.<\/p>\n

The second decision I needed to make was how I was going to employ the e-junkie<\/a> shopping cart with PWIW pricing. As with most online shopping carts, while it allows the customer to set the price of the item <\/strong>(often called a donation), it also requires the seller to set a suggested price.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Suggested Prices Signify Something<\/h2>\n

One of those things they can signify is what I think the thing I’m selling is worth. And for this experiment, that’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted you alone to decide what the product is worth to you.<\/p>\n

But this was not, and is not, an option currently with online shopping carts \u2014 to set NO suggested price \u2014 so I needed to set the suggested price at something. The value I decided to use (for every product’s suggested price) was what I felt was a ridiculously low value ($0.07). My hope was this suggested price signified, please think about what you value this at because this price is clearly not a fair one.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was my hypothesis that $0.07 was such an insignificant value to give\/pay that it would be altered by each buyer. Most of us would not feel good giving $0.07 to a person in need, nor as a tip for service. And what can we puchase for that amount, outside of loose candy?<\/p>\n

Despite this truth about the value of $0.07, my experiment yielded a handful of people that gave this amount<\/strong> to a faceless shopping cart in return for a communication tool created by me in support of them.<\/p>\n

(It should be noted that no profit is made from online sales roughly less than $0.50 due to PayPal’s costs to process the transaction.)<\/em><\/p>\n

A Curious Result<\/h2>\n

This is not to say there hasn’t been customers that have given fairly, despite the $0.07 suggested price. The fair are the majority in my PWIW experiment. But I found it curious, this minority that used the $0.07 suggested price as their<\/strong> price. They, I feel, are something to consider further.<\/p>\n

I theorized there was something in my communication, namely the suggested price, that was contributing to this outcome. I wondered if by setting the suggested price very low, I was unconsciously sending a message about how I valued my work. What does it say about me and how I value my products when I set the suggested price low?<\/p>\n

My Question<\/h2>\n

If these people exist, those that do not consciously consider how they value a product, and you want to sell something online using PWIW, how can you improve the exchange so that they behave more fairly?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My Theory<\/h2>\n

I’m theorizing that when the suggested price is set extremely low and there is no human connection, the communication it sends allows others to more easily react from a scarcity mindset and not value the product fairly, nor pay fairly.<\/p>\n

Trying Something Different<\/h2>\n

Rather than setting the suggested price ridiculously low ($0.07) for each of the products in my store, I’ve set it ridiculously high ($777). <\/strong><\/p>\n

I am still hoping the suggested price will signify, please think about what you value this at because this price is clearly not a fair one<\/em>. <\/em>I am interested in how this higher suggested price affects the behaviour of those customers who are buying unconsciously.<\/p>\n

In six months time, I’ll let you know what my experiment yields.<\/p>\n

photo credit: kevin dooley<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"After<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m curious about selling products online using PWIW and how it can work best. So, about six months ago I turned some communication tools I’d created over the years into products and began selling them in my store<\/a> using PWIW.<\/p>\n

Using PWIW for an Online Store<\/h2>\n

For my experiment, I wanted to figure out a strong way of selling a product online using PWIW. My first task (I felt) was to find software to help me with the buying and selling of my products. I needed a shopping cart tool to enable the sales transaction and to provide the product to buyers after sale. After doing research I decided upon using e-junkie<\/a>. I have been happy with this decision.<\/p>\n

The second decision I needed to make was how I was going to employ the e-junkie<\/a> shopping cart with PWIW pricing. As with most online shopping carts, while it allows the customer to set the price of the item <\/strong>(often called a donation), it also requires the seller to set a suggested price.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Suggested Prices Signify Something<\/h2>\n

One of those things they can signify is what I think the thing I’m selling is worth. And for this experiment, that’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted you alone to decide what the product is worth to you.<\/p>\n

But this was not, and is not, an option currently with online shopping carts \u2014 to set NO suggested price \u2014 so I needed to set the suggested price at something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[218,106,220],"class_list":["post-6673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pay-what-its-worth","tag-pricing","tag-products","tag-suggested-prices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elasticmind.ca\/innerpreneur\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}