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For two-sided platforms, the utility of users on one side of the platform depends in part on the number of users on the other side of the platform, a phenomenon called indirect network externalities. With the rapid development of two-sided platform and the popularity of platform membership, more and more two-sided platforms have launched joint membership through horizontal cooperation in order to take advantage of indirect network externalities to increase platform profits.

Our study explores the optimal bundling strategy for platform memberships under horizontal cooperation considering indirect network externalities. The main purpose of our study is to obtain the optimal pricing under different strategies (pure component, pure bundling, and mixed bundling) and contrast different strategies under different indirect network externalities.

Results suggest that the platform's optimal pricing for consumers and sellers depends on the indirect network externalities. Interestingly, the higher the indirect network externalities from consumers, the higher the price of the platform charges to sellers, and the platform might even subsidize sellers. Besides, when there are equal proportions of different types of consumers in the market, indirect network externalities that are too high, too low, or heavily lopsided may discourage the platforms from bundling their memberships. When the composition of consumers changes, the optimal strategy will also change. Our results can be employed in practical applications of bundling, which can help the platform increase profits.

This paper attempts to analyze the relationship between the complementarity degrees of imperfect complementary products and sales strategies and give appropriate sales strategies for a two-stage supply chain.

With respect to two-stage supply chain consisting of two manufacturers who produce imperfect complementary products and one retailer who sells the products, aiming at bundling sales strategy, the authors define complementarity elasticity of products and use it to measure the degree of complementary between two products. Based on Stackelberg game and cooperation, the authors analyze the relationship between the complementarity degrees of imperfect complementary products and appropriate sales strategies.

As the impact of complementarity degree on sales strategy decision-making is better, the authors can pinpoint out which sales decision-making is optimal and which bundling sales strategy is the best for a two-stage supply chain. Considering that the degree of complementarity has a significant impact on the product sales strategy, the authors can point out which sales decision-making is optimal, that is, which bundled sales strategy is the optimal in the secondary supply chain of selling complementary products.

An innovative bundling can expand the sales of existing products and new products. It helps a retailer transcend and defeat competitors by reducing marketing expenses while increasing profits. Proper use of bundling can improve consumers utility and create an overall positive effect for both the enterprises and consumer.

The research can help some retailers to make many appropriate bundling sales strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and identify the price sensitivity of consumers of three- and five-star hotels and to determine the impact of bundling strategies on consumers’ price sensitivity.

To calculate price sensitivity, authors apply the van Westendorp’s price sensitivity meter (PSM). To understand the impact of bundling strategies, univariate and bivariate techniques are applied.

PSM results reveal the optimal prices and the range of acceptable prices for three- and five-star hotel. The bundling strategy results reveal that five-star customers are less sensitive to mixed-leader bundling. Regarding mixed-joint bundling, managers could improve sales through bundling strategies if they selected an attractive service (e.g. restaurants).

Findings assist hotel managers to understand the different price sensitivities, according to the hotel typology. Managers can manage prices without the risk of losing market share or revenue. The results help managers in deciding which bundling strategies they can create, as well as the services to be included to achieve highest profitability.

No research to date to the best of the authors’ knowledge has attempted to understand and compare the role of bundling strategies in three- and five-stars hotels. Moreover, no research has attempted to measure and compare customers’ price sensitivity of three- and five-stars hotels.

This paper aims to address the following problems: What are the firms’ optimal pricing and quality policies under three scenarios (no bundling, pure bundling and mixed bundling)? In what condition will one bundling strategy dominate the others? How does the degree of complementarity affect the firms’ decision?

Using the game theory, this study first establishes three models of bundling strategies: no bundling, pure bundling and mixed bundling and then obtains the optimal prices and quality decisions. This study uses numerical analysis to explore the relationships between the prices (demands and profits) and some key parameters and to obtain some valuable management complications.

Some interesting and valuable management implications are established: regardless of the degree of complementarity, adopting a pure bundling or mixed bundling strategy is better than separately selling an individual product; a high degree of complementarity leads to reduced profit in the no bundling and mixed bundling scenarios, whereas the condition in the pure bundling strategy is the opposite; and when the degree of complementarity is adequately large, choosing pure bundling strategy is more profitable.

On the one hand, this study does not calculate the profit sharing ratio, and hence, the equilibrium profit sharing ratio can be explored in future work. On the other hand, marketing efforts (e.g. advertising and promotion) can be included in the study.

This study derives the necessary conditions for the most effective bundling strategy that maximizes firm’s profits, and these conclusions can provide a decision reference to the bundling decisions of firms.

First, the optimal bundling strategies in a horizontal supply chain consisting of two firms is considered. Under the pure and mixed bundling strategies, the two firms sell the bundled product by building a cooperative program. Second, both the pricing policies and quality decisions of supply chain members under the different bundling strategies are studied.

Many e-commerce firms suffer from high returns because of inaccurate and incomplete product information. Omnichannel and bundling settings can help firms improve operational efficiency and lower returns costs. However, no studies have been conducted on omnichannel supply chains considering bundling strategies. The purpose of this study is to examine the comparison between test-in-store-and-buy-online (TSBO) and online retail, comparing manufacturers’ bundling with retailers’ bundling.

The supply chain discussed here consists of two competitive manufacturers and one retailer. The retailer sells both manufacturers' products online and displays one manufacturer's product in a showroom who bears the display cost. Stackelberg game theory is used to develop mathematical models that help manufacturers and retailers make the most effective decisions. Here, the manufacturer is the Stackelberg leader, while the retailer is the follower. Using the backward induction approach, the authors determined the optimal values for selling price, wholesale price and service effort level.

The results show that the total TSBO retailing profit under manufacturer bundling is highest when the second manufacturer integrates with the online retailer. The result additionally establishes that when the bundling cost exceeds a certain threshold (1.5), the total profit is higher for the non-integrated type of supply chain channel as compared to the integrated retailer bundling-based configuration.

The operations and logistics manager will likely undertake the TSBO omnichannel strategy during manufacturers bundling and retailer bundling under the integrated strategy.

The main contribution of the study is to examine the effect of TSBO retailing on supply chains profit and individual decision-making under different bundling strategies. The authors developed different mathematical models in the TSBO retailing and bundling context and extended the earlier work in the area of integration frame.

The emergence of internet-enabled technology has led to the software service model in which the software firm, instead of the consumer, maintains software ownership. This model can curtail software piracy more effectively than the traditional on-premises software model. However, software firms are not abandoning traditional on-premises software but embracing both models simultaneously. In this study, the authors consider a firm’s software bundling decision in combination with its piracy deterrence strategy. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors build three stylized models to analytically compare the bundling strategies under three scenarios: no piracy, piracy is present and piracy is present while the firm applies digital rights management (DRM).

The authors find pure bundling (PB) to be the optimal strategy due to the combination of competition and cannibalization effects in mixed bundling (MB). Simultaneously, consumers may enjoy greater surplus in PB than in MB, making PB the preferred strategy for both the firm and consumers. Interestingly, the win-win outcome coexists with some degree of piracy in the market.

The results provide important insights for firms and policy-makers and contribute to the literature on piracy and product bundling. First, the authors show piracy could be another driver for product bundling, which has never been discussed in prior literature. Second, the authors suggest an alternative perspective; that PB may be a desirable outcome for both firms and consumers when considering piracy and DRM. More surprisingly, this desirable outcome occurs with some level of piracy in the market. The presence of piracy leads to competition and cannibalization effects in MB, which eventually results in the win-win outcome in the software market for both the firm and the consumers.

Consumer price sensitivity has become a major issue over the past few decades. This paper aims to investigate the importance that insurance customers give to premiums, insurers, intermediary recommendations and bundling strategies. The relationship between attributes and consumer price sensitivity is also studied.

To calculate the importance of attributes and part-worth utilities, a Conjoint Analysis with Full Profile was performed. To segment the market, a two-stage cluster analysis was performed. The traditional formula for estimating price elasticity of demand was also used.

Price sensitivity is affected by the level of purchase involvement, bundled discounts and brand loyalty. Also, brand loyalty has a strong influence on customer acceptance of bundled discounts. Price bundling increases a firm’s revenues and profits.

The size of the sample of the second stage of the research could be higher.

It would also be interesting to have the collaboration of an actuary to carry out more precise analysis of premium estimation of bundling strategies and to study the ideal number of products that would compose the bundling strategy. Moreover, it could be relevant to consider life insurance products as part of the bundling strategy. It would also be interesting to study whether there is any benefit in applying the bundle discount to the anchor product instead of applying it to the accessory product.

Insurers and intermediaries can benefit from price bundling strategies to increase sales and profit.

The study contributes to the service marketing literature and marketing of the insurance sector by providing empirical evidence of the impact of price bundling on insurance customer sensitivity, with the use of a methodological and experimental approach.

Building on the resource-based view (RBV) perspective of common resources, the objective of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of container terminals' common resources (i.e. government support and terminal resources) on resource bundling strategies and subsequent effect on service performance.

Using cross-sectional survey data collected from a sample of 216 respondents of Indonesia's container terminals, this study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypothesised relationships between common resources, resource bundling strategies and service performance.

Government support and terminal resources (personnel and physical), both as sources of common resources when bundled effectively, are found to have positive and significant effect on terminal service performance. The resource bundling strategies fully mediate the relationship between container terminals' common resources and service performance.

The study introduces the notion of common resources to container terminal managers in contrast to the valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable (VRIN) types. It is recommended that appropriate resource bundling strategies can turn the common resources into VRIN resources that can be used to obtain desired service performance.

RBV theorists suggest that resources that are VRIN types can be the source of competitive advantage. However, the resources can also be common, basic and valuable, a fact that is rarely investigated in the literature. These common resources can be bundled judiciously with other pre-existing resources to create VRIN resources. This research enriches the RBV by empirically validating that VRIN resources are embedded within various common resources bundling strategies.

The purpose of this article is based on the unit patent license fee model in the closed-loop supply chain.

This paper analyzes the impact of the bundling strategy of the retailer selling new products and remanufactured products on the closed-loop supply chain under the condition that the original manufacturer produces new products and the remanufacturer produces remanufacturing products.

The results show that alternative products can be bundled, and in many cases, the bundling of remanufactured products and new products is better than selling alone.

If the retailer chooses bundling, for the remanufacturer, when certain conditions are met, the benefits of bundling are greater than the separate sales at that time; for the original manufacturer, when the recycling price sensitivity coefficient is high, the bundling is better than separate sales.

The purpose of this study is to examine consumer behaviors toward a bundle of tickets and lodging using two different message framing: (1) scarcity framing for a high demand event, the All-Star Game, and (2) discount framing for a lower demand event, an MLB mid-week game.

Data were collected through two online surveys of 836 sport consumers in total on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and were analyzed using a mix of analysis of variances (ANOVAs) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).

Consumers are likely to buy products separately in a scarce situation. When discounts are offered as benefits of choosing a bundle, consumers with high willingness to pay (WTP) have higher purchase intentions (PI) and perceived value toward cumulative discounts.

This is the one of few studies that investigate (1) price bundling of products from two disparate industries where consumer demands fluctuate, (2) the effects of scarcity in a bundle, and (3) all possible discount messaging in a bundle.