Product bundling is a sales method in which the seller sells a package or combination of products or services for a united price. Take the example of a combo meal. Most malls have eateries that offer a combination meal, which includes portions of each dish to make a complete meal, usually at a lower price than if bought individually. In some cases, they are offered by default, for instance while purchasing a computer, you pay a small fee to install certain software.
Product bundling is a great way to promote and sell products of a common category. Although, a recent Harvard study shows that customers don’t appreciate having their choices taken away from them. Vineeth Kumar, assistant professor of Harvard University’s Marketing Unit and Timothy Derdenger of Carnegie Mellon University have noted in their study that bundling will be more successful if the products in the bundle are available for purchase individually as well.
Bundling in ecommerce?
An online seller can put product bundling to good use. Use good recommendation software to propose suitable bundles to specific users. As a seller, you will end up selling more products through bundling. If you follow a systematic approach with the data (collected on buyer behaviour), you will be able to make suitable recommendations to your buyers. This in turn will help drive your sales.
Amazon practices a form of bundling indirectly. It nudges its customers to purchase a combination of items, albeit at the same total cost. Example given below:
How can you effectively apply product bundling to your products?
Some apt bundling techniques you can include in your ecommerce are as follows:
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Club accessories with an item
It would make a lot of economic sense if you sell the accessories of a product together. If you are selling an SLR camera, offer a tripod, lens cover, and an SD card together at a discounted rate.
Limeroad markets ‘looks’ that contains clothes and accessories.
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Give shoppers the power to decide
Give your shoppers the choice to make the smarter decision. Apply Vineeth Kumar’s study (cited above) to good measure. Set the products out separately, and mention the savings amount for the bundle.
For example, ‘Buy A, B and C at Rs. 2,999. You can also buy the ABC package at Rs. 2,799. Your total savings – Rs. 200’
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Promote small purchases
Encourage shoppers to buy bundles of smaller products. Invariably, when a shopper buys small items like soaps or batteries, it is a burden on the seller to ship them individually. It is equally expensive for the shopper. So suggest shoppers to buy a group of related items at a lesser price by clubbing the items together.
In this image, Flipkart suggests its buyers to pick up two or three items of a category together, at a discounted rate. In the case of the idli maker, one would need the pans and the cooker, so to buy them together at this offer would make more sense.
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Throw in a freebie
Along with the bundle, add a little something for free to make the package more attractive. If a buyer sees that he gets 3 items of a group for a lower price than if he were to buy each separately, and one of those items is free, he will doubtlessly jump at it.
For instance, you can offer the following bundle:
- A laptop
- An external hard disk
- A free wireless mouse
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Get creative
Come up with gift packages during festive seasons like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day or Friendship Day. You can put together items that are not necessarily related to each other for a gift or festive bundle. You can put together a grooming set comprising of a beard trimmer, nail trimmer, cuff links and say a key chain for the boyfriend or husband. Think of fragrance pouches, hanky sets, and nail polish for Mother’s Day. This would save shoppers the trouble of scouting for the ideal gift, and thank you for it.
There is no doubt that as a seller, you will have to take a cut in your earnings, but if you compare it with volume, it will work out to be worth the sacrifice. Bundling products can also result in more patrons. So let’s go and try out how product bundling works. As India’s leading ecommerce solutions providers, we can help you to meet your ecommerce needs. Contact us at Browntape and let us help you on your ecommerce journey.
