IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormksc/v33y2014i2p259-272.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Equivalence of Bundling and Advance Sales

Author

Listed:
  • Alexei Alexandrov

    (U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Washington, DC 20552)

  • Özlem Bedre-Defolie

    (ESMT European School of Management and Technology, D-10178 Berlin, Germany)

Abstract

We identify the conditions under which a problem of optimal advance selling strategy can be mathematically transformed into a problem of optimal bundle pricing. These conditions are as follows: (i) consumers and sellers have common priors on the probability of each state being realized in the future, (ii) consumers are risk-neutral, (iii) sellers can commit to spot prices, and (iv) consumers and sellers discount the future at the same rate. The result allows both researchers and practitioners to extend and/or apply the findings from the vast literature on bundling to advance selling problems, and vice versa. We highlight several insights that are particularly relevant, such as the importance of the dependence of consumer valuations across states on the profitability of advance selling in the base case of two states as well as in the cases of more than two states or with possible competition in some of the states.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexei Alexandrov & Özlem Bedre-Defolie, 2014. "The Equivalence of Bundling and Advance Sales," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(2), pages 259-272, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:33:y:2014:i:2:p:259-272
    DOI: 10.1287/mksc.2013.0833
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2013.0833
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mksc.2013.0833?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blundell,Richard & Newey,Whitney K. & Persson,Torsten (ed.), 2006. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521871525, September.
    2. Xavier Gabaix & David Laibson, 2018. "Shrouded attributes, consumer myopia and information suppression in competitive markets," Chapters, in: Victor J. Tremblay & Elizabeth Schroeder & Carol Horton Tremblay (ed.), Handbook of Behavioral Industrial Organization, chapter 3, pages 40-74, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Whinston, Michael D, 1990. "Tying, Foreclosure, and Exclusion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 837-859, September.
    4. Robert Gertner, 1993. "Game Shows and Economic Behavior: Risk-Taking on "Card Sharks"," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 507-521.
    5. Morris, Stephen, 1995. "The Common Prior Assumption in Economic Theory," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 227-253, October.
    6. Tamer Boyacı & Özalp Özer, 2010. "Information Acquisition for Capacity Planning via Pricing and Advance Selling: When to Stop and Act?," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(5), pages 1328-1349, October.
    7. Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Industrial Organization," Handbook of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 1.
    8. Blundell,Richard & Newey,Whitney K. & Persson,Torsten (ed.), 2006. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521692083, September.
    9. Gale, Ian L. & Holmes, Thomas J., 1992. "The efficiency of advance-purchase discounts in the presence of aggregate demand uncertainty," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 413-437, September.
    10. Robert T. Clemen & Terence Reilly, 1999. "Correlations and Copulas for Decision and Risk Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(2), pages 208-224, February.
    11. Armstrong, Mark, 2013. "A more general theory of commodity bundling," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 448-472.
    12. Long, John B, Jr, 1984. "Comments on "Gaussian Demand and Commodity Bundling."," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(1), pages 235-246, January.
    13. Dennis W. Carlton & Michael Waldman, 2002. "The Strategic Use of Tying to Preserve and Create Market Power in Evolving Industries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(2), pages 194-220, Summer.
    14. John C. Eckalbar, 2010. "Closed‐Form Solutions to Bundling Problems," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 513-544, June.
    15. Gale, Ian L & Holmes, Thomas J, 1993. "Advance-Purchase Discounts and Monopoly Allocation of Capacity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 135-146, March.
    16. Chenghuan Sean Chu & Phillip Leslie & Alan Sorensen, 2011. "Bundle-Size Pricing as an Approximation to Mixed Bundling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 263-303, February.
    17. Schmalensee, Richard, 1984. "Gaussian Demand and Commodity Bundling," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(1), pages 211-230, January.
    18. James D. Dana Jr., 1998. "Advance-Purchase Discounts and Price Discrimination in Competitive Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(2), pages 395-422, April.
    19. Christopher S. Tang & Kumar Rajaram & Ayd{i}n Alptekinou{g}lu & Jihong Ou, 2004. "The Benefits of Advance Booking Discount Programs: Model and Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(4), pages 465-478, April.
    20. Yannis Bakos & Erik Brynjolfsson, 1999. "Bundling Information Goods: Pricing, Profits, and Efficiency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(12), pages 1613-1630, December.
    21. William James Adams & Janet L. Yellen, 1976. "Commodity Bundling and the Burden of Monopoly," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(3), pages 475-498.
    22. Jinhong Xie & Steven M. Shugan, 2001. "Electronic Tickets, Smart Cards, and Online Prepayments: When and How to Advance Sell," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(3), pages 219-243, June.
    23. Bruce H. Kobayashi, 2005. "Does Economics Provide A Reliable Guide To Regulating Commodity Bundling By Firms? A Survey Of The Economic Literature," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(4), pages 707-746.
    24. Barry Nalebuff, 2004. "Bundling as an Entry Barrier," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 159-187.
    25. Stole, Lars A., 2007. "Price Discrimination and Competition," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 2221-2299, Elsevier.
    26. Connel Fullenkamp & Rafael Tenorio & Robert Battalio, 2003. "Assessing Individual Risk Attitudes Using Field Data From Lottery Games," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 218-226, February.
    27. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2010. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521681599, November.
    28. R. Venkatesh & Wagner Kamakura, 2003. "Optimal Bundling and Pricing under a Monopoly: Contrasting Complements and Substitutes from Independently Valued Products," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(2), pages 211-232, April.
    29. Yongmin Chen & Michael H. Riordan, 2013. "Profitability Of Product Bundling," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(1), pages 35-57, February.
    30. Gérard P. Cachon, 2004. "The Allocation of Inventory Risk in a Supply Chain: Push, Pull, and Advance-Purchase Discount Contracts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(2), pages 222-238, February.
    31. McAfee, R. Preston & McMillan, John, 1988. "Multidimensional incentive compatibility and mechanism design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 335-354, December.
    32. Scott Fay & Jinhong Xie, 2010. "The Economics of Buyer Uncertainty: Advance Selling vs. Probabilistic Selling," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(6), pages 1040-1057, 11-12.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Qianbo Yin & Kwei‐Long Huang & Chia‐Wei Kuo & Sean X. Zhou, 2021. "Add‐On Pricing in a Distribution Channel," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(11), pages 4069-4088, November.
    2. Qiu, Shangzhi & Wu, Laurie & Yang, Yanjia & Zeng, Guojun, 2022. "Offering the right incentive at the right time: Leveraging customer mental accounting to promote prepaid service," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    3. Sinha, Rajesh Kumar & Adhikari, Atanu, 2018. "Buyer-seller amount-price equilibrium for prepaid services: Implication for promotional pricing," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 285-292.
    4. Zhenhua Gao & Luyao Zhao & Hongjun Wang, 2022. "Supply Chain Coordination of Product and Service Bundling Based on Network Externalities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-19, June.
    5. Yilin Liang & Yuping Hu & Dongjun Luo & Qi Zhu & Qingxuan Chen & Chunmei Wang, 2023. "Distributed Dynamic Pricing Strategy Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach in a Presale Mechanism," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-20, July.
    6. Sreya Kolay, 2018. "Tie-in contracts with downstream competition," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 43-77, March.
    7. Vithala R. Rao & Gary J. Russell & Hemant Bhargava & Alan Cooke & Tim Derdenger & Hwang Kim & Nanda Kumar & Irwin Levin & Yu Ma & Nitin Mehta & John Pracejus & R. Venkatesh, 2018. "Emerging Trends in Product Bundling: Investigating Consumer Choice and Firm Behavior," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 5(1), pages 107-120, March.
    8. Sreya Kolay & Rajeev K. Tyagi, 2022. "Optimal Bundling of Events," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(2), pages 380-400, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhou, Jidong, 2021. "Mixed bundling in oligopoly markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    2. Akifumi Ishihara & Noriyuki Yanagawa, 2013. "Dark Sides of Patent Pools with Compulsory Independent Licensing," CARF F-Series CARF-F-318, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    3. Yongmin Chen & Tianle Zhang, 2015. "Interpersonal Bundling," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(6), pages 1456-1471, June.
    4. Stole, Lars A., 2007. "Price Discrimination and Competition," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 2221-2299, Elsevier.
    5. Takanori Adachi & Takeshi Ebina & Makoto Hanazono, 2017. "Endogenous Product Boundary," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(1), pages 13-40, January.
    6. Ishihara, Akifumi & Yanagawa, Noriyuki, 2018. "Dark sides of patent pools with independent licensing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1-34.
    7. Mark Armstrong, 2016. "Nonlinear Pricing," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 583-614, October.
    8. Kopczewski, Tomasz & Sobolewski, Maciej & Miernik, Ireneusz, 2018. "Bundling or unbundling? Integrated simulation model of optimal pricing strategies," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 328-345.
    9. Sang‐Hyun Kim & Jong‐Hee Hahn, 2022. "On the profitability of interfirm bundling in oligopolies," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 657-673, August.
    10. Banciu, M. & Ødegaard, F., 2016. "Optimal product bundling with dependent valuations: The price of independence," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 255(2), pages 481-495.
    11. Sheikhzadeh, Mehdi & Elahi, Ehsan, 2013. "Product bundling: Impacts of product heterogeneity and risk considerations," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 209-222.
    12. Jidong Zhou, 2017. "Competitive Bundling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 145-172, January.
    13. Ritwik Raj & Mark H. Karwan & Chase Murray & Lei Sun, 2022. "Itemized pricing in B2B bundles with diminishing reservation prices and loss averse customers," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(4), pages 375-392, August.
    14. Chen, Bo & Ni, Debing, 2017. "Optimal bundle pricing under correlated valuations," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 248-281.
    15. Chen, Yongmin & Li, Jianpei, 2018. "Bundled procurement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 116-127.
    16. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    17. Yongmin Chen & Tianle Zhang, 2012. "Group Coupons: Interpersonal Bundling on the Internet," Working Papers 12-09, NET Institute.
    18. Andrea Mantovani, 2013. "The Strategic Effect of Bundling: A New Perspective," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 42(1), pages 25-43, February.
    19. Bronwyn E. Howell & Petrus H. Potgieter, 2018. "Bundles of trouble: Can competition law adapt to digital pricing innovation?," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, , vol. 19(1-2), pages 3-24, March.
    20. Waterman, David & Sherman, Ryland & Wook Ji, Sung, 2013. "The economics of online television: Industry development, aggregation, and “TV Everywhere”," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 725-736.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    advance selling discounts; bundling; pricing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:33:y:2014:i:2:p:259-272. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.