How Buyers Evaluate Product Bundles: A Model of Anchoring and Adjustment

Abstract

Bundling, the joint offering of two or more items, is a common selling strategy, yet little research has been conducted on buyers' evaluation of bundle offers. We developed and tested a model of bundle evaluation in which buyers anchored their evaluation on the item perceived as most important and then made adjustments on the basis of their evaluations of the remaining bundle items. The results of two computerized laboratory experiments suggested that people tend to examine bundle items in a decreasing order of perceived importance and make adjustments to form their overall evaluation of the bundle.