Effects of purchase and presentation order on the valuation of physical and digital good bundles

[摘要] Many digital goods also come on physical mediums, such as movies and games on discs. We investigate how the order of purchase (buying a digital copy of a good already owned in physical form or vice versa) and order of presentation (considering one form of the good and then a bundle of both) can affect consumer valuations of the second purchase and bundles containing both physical and digital goods. Using a series of experiments, we show that (a) physical goods are more valuable than digital goods, (b) consumers who own digital (physical) goods are more (less) willing to purchase a second, physical (digital) copy of the same good, and (c) presenting consumers a digital product for consideration first can lead to lower willingness to pay for a bundle containing both physical and digital forms of the good. Internalized reference prices and the anchoring and adjustment heuristic are used to explain these results.

[发布机构] Massachusetts Institute of Technology