Willingness to Pay for Digital Services: Challenges for Future Research

In this article we discuss three issues that should be considered important in future studies of willingness to pay (WTP) for services in digital networks. First, existing studies of WTP for digital services have several weaknesses when it comes to contextand incentive realism and we suggest alternative methods to overcome these weaknesses. Second, a review of existing studies of WTP for digital services also reveal that existing studies are narrowly focused on measures of willingness to pay. Thus, a nomological network of WTP is suggested to get a broader theoretical framework for purposes of validation of pure willingness to pay measures. Finally, existing studies on WTP for digital services has focused single-channel services. The large number of cross-channel and multi-channel services offered in digital networks, makes us point to the importance of WTP studies for cross-channel and multi-channel digital services in the future.