Impact of mixed bundling type on consumers’ value perception

Abstract

A discount through bundling can harm consumers’ perception of the reference price of, and willingness to pay for, the bundled products. This study investigates how types of bundling such as mixed‐leader and mixed‐joint bundling affect the value perception of a primary product. Three experiments were developed and used to test theoretical hypotheses. Data were collected and analyzed using multivariate analyses of variance and mediation analysis with the bootstrapping procedure. Results show that leader bundling is more efficient in protecting the value perception of the primary product than joint bundling. The bundling type effect is mediated by consumers’ discount attribution and is strengthened in a low product similarity scenario. Further, cognitive style and attention level significantly mediate the relationship between product similarity and consumers’ discount attribution, especially under leader bundling. These findings provide a deeper understanding of the bundling type effect. The moderating effects of product similarity show the conditions for the bundling type effect. Additionally, the mediating effect of discount attribution is very meaningful since attribution is the most frequently mentioned theory in bundling research, while no study has directly examined it to date. The findings also provide useful implications for retailers to design efficient bundling promotion.

Uniform pricing effect: The influence of uniform pricing on product value judgement and purchase intention

“…The purpose of promotion is to increase the value of a product or service in consumers' minds (Kotler & Keller, 2006), which includes both the acquisition value (i.e., the net gains derived from the product or service acquired) and the transaction value (i.e., the level of satisfaction or pleasant feeling derived from a transaction or the feeling obtained from getting a good price) (Cai et al, 2016; Grewal et al, 1998). Only when consumers recognize the value in the promotion activities and make sure that they can obtain benefits from it will they take actual purchase actions (Li & Song, 2022; Monroe, 1973; Peng & Liang, 2013). In addition, Raghubir et al (2004) stated that consumers respond to promotions favourably because of the positive benefit perceptions that the promotions bring to them, which allow consumers to perceive higher values (Peng & Liang, 2013).…”

Bundling or not bundling: Sequential bundling in e‐commerce distribution channels

“…Qiang et al (2021) considered mixed‐leader bundling and explored whether the types of bundling strategies differed depending on the similarity of the products. Li and Song (2022) took mixed‐leader bundling into account and investigated how different bundling strategies influence the perceived value of the main product. Gayer et al (2021) compared the profitability of implementing sequential bundling, pure bundling, and mixed bundling with no bundling and showed that the sequential bundling strategy yields higher profits.…”