Factors influencing consumer decision in crowdfunding
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2015-02
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Pereira, Luís Henrique
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Crowdfunding is a recent and emerging method of raising capital for the development of projects (both profit and non-profit oriented) without traditional intermediation of financial institutions, freeing entrepreneurs from the costs, regulation and paperwork associated with it. Besides, it is also a method of pre-testing new products to a selected and enthusiastic audience. The objective of this dissertation is to understand what factors are influencing the consumer decision to fund projects. The literature review contributes with: (1) intrinsic factors, like desire for patronage; (2) extrinsic factors, like presentation of the project; and (3) social pressure. There are also factors associated with current level of funding and number of funders, as well as type of project involved, being it charity or not. Moreover, attitudes also play a role into affecting the decision to fund. To answer the research question, a two phase methodology was used: a qualitative survey that captured intention to fund and motivations from different interviewees, in order to build up a decision process that encompassed all possibilities described by the literature. After the qualitative survey, a quantitative research was employed to validate the insights generated by the qualitative phase and collect further data in order to generate the association between intention to fund and behaviors. Among the insights generated by the qualitative phase were the fact that most funders had the primary motivation to buy the product being offered as if they were pre-ordering. However, this was not the main reason for the charity funder. Additionally, the respondents that pre-ordered products did so for the single reason that these products sufficed needs that they had. These needs greatly varied, from missing traditional old games to solving a wallet organization problem. Another characteristic of the pre-orders is that they would not give small pledges, for the sole reason that they would not receive the product in exchange. Rewards played a big role into luring the respondents in funding more than they previously considered. This was also true for the charity donor respondent, who also donated more. The quantitative phase confirmed the insights above and generated extra information on association and categories. Charity and Art projects concentrated the majority of respondents saying that the reason to invest was basically helping to develop the project without demanding material reward in exchange. However, other projects such as Music also presented high numbers of donation-like behavior, possible given the emotional involvement between funder and artist. Other categories presented a mix of reasons to fund or skewed towards buying the product only, which can be explained by rewards effects and the fact that the categories involved are basically selling products. The quantitative survey also confirmed the main sources used to get to know the projects: recommendation and forums and blogs were also in this survey the main sources used. Another outcome of this phase was the development of factors through attitudinal statements that could explain the intention to fund. Six factors were created, namely Enthusiasm (for crowdfunding), Exclusivity (buying rewards), Charitable (small pledges to help funding), Caution (similar to the diffusion of responsibility, that is, waiting for more funders to give the first step), Intimacy (project was recommended or emotional attachment to the creator) and Sharing (actively sharing in order to also help bring more funders to finish the project). Categories that have high emotional involvement presented association also with intimacy, like music, film and technology. Given the fact that the sample did not have many enthusiastic for crowdfunding, this factor did not show any association with any categories. Categories that do not provide products in return, such as food and photography, presented high levels of association with the charitable factor. Sharing is highly associated with technology, given the fact that this category concentrates respondents that are more innovation-driven and enthusiastic about the product, so they need to share and generate word of mouth in order to help reach the funding goal.