Personalisation of e-commerce checkout donations

Abstract

How can donor behaviour be influenced through principles of psychology and behavioural economics? This paper develops a mathematical model to determine the willingness to donate online which is influenced by several factors, such as- messaging of donation solicitation, age, gender, country, date. Five different vignettes were curated on the basis of varied messaging- Base case, Altruism, Reciprocity, Social Proof and Scarcity. About 2500 respondents participated in the study, with 500 unique responses for each vignette. Our findings suggest that the incremental willingness to donate in Altruism and Reciprocity vignette with respect to the Base case is statistically significant. Whereas, in case of Scarcity and Social Proof, the willingness to donate is statistically insignificant. A meta-analysis of previous studies suggests that intrinsic motivators tend to be better suited for activities involving high internal locus of control, such as- charitable giving. Furthermore, the internal locus of control is accentuated in a virtual format (such as- ecommerce platforms) as there is a one-to-one transaction that diminishes the impact of extrinsic factors (such as- peer pressure, deadlines). Therefore, online players must be mindful of the nature of messaging to maximise the amount raised through online donation campaigns.