Pricing and Service Decisions in Crowdfunding
摘要
Crowdfunding has experienced rapid development worldwide in recent years and has become a very important approach to raising money for some new-start companies and SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). This paper studies the optimal pricing and service strategies in a crowdfunding mechanism by which a project could be realized between a creator and a number of consumers only if the total funds committed by consumers reach the predetermined target within a certain time. The proposed model shows that the volume strategy is always dominated by the menu strategy, but the menu strategy is invalided when the fundraising target is relatively high. The creator can offer a certain level of services to attract more buyers to participate in the project, but any service is meaningless when the target exceeds the threshold. This paper also proposes suggestions for creators in setting targets and pricing when facing risk-averse buyers. Together, the proposed findings benifit the crowdfunding project creators, making them more likely to succeed and obtain more funds.