Bundling

Bundling is the practice of marketing two or more products and/or services in a single package. Buyers are thought to evaluate bundles using an anchoring and adjustment heuristic. That is, buyers make an initial evaluation of the bundle based on the component perceived to be most important; this initial evaluation is then adjusted up or down by evaluating the remaining items in the bundle in decreasing order of perceived importance. Bundle evaluations obtained using the anchoring and adjustment approach are similar to those obtained using a weighted average evaluation of the bundle components. Research on valuation of a bundle seems to offer inconsistent guidelines, indicating a need for further exploration of this topic. Recent work suggests that research needs to look beyond the issue of price bundling to the larger strategic implications of bundling.