Shine Bright like a Diamond - Exploring the Effects of Online-Product Presentation on Backing Behavior in Reward-based Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding (CF) is gaining much attention in theory and practice. Various platforms have emerged, offering the possibility to raise money from an undefined group of online users. Despite the growing interest, there appears to be little understanding of what influences backers funding behavior as well as their intention to return to a CF-platform. Due to the analogies of e-commerce and reward- based CF, we address this issue by drawing on e-commerce theory, mainly online-product- presentation. It was proven that online-product-presentation is a successful influencing factor on consumer's behavior. Based on this, we aim at developing a theory ingrained research model to analyze and understand the impact of online-product-presentation elements on funding and returning behavior of backers in reward-based CF. Our research is the first empirical attempt to investigate these effects in the context of reward-based CF. Doing so, our research contributes to the body of online-product- presentation theory by applying it into a new context. The results have practical implications for effective product presentations in reward-based CF. It helps crowdfunding intermediaries and individuals to understand the importance of online-product-presentation, and provides them with actionable ad- vice on how to handle them on, among others, platform design and online product promotion.