Transaction decoupling: How price bundling affects the decision to consume
Soman and Gourville propose that price bundling decouples transaction costs from benefits, reducing attention to sunk costs and lowering the likelihood of consuming a prepaid service. In two laboratory studies a bundled four-day ski pass, compared with four single-day tickets, made people less likely to ski on the last day; a field study found holders of multi-performance theatre tickets more likely to miss a given show than holders of single tickets. A fourth study points to cognitive and motivational explanations. Journal of Marketing Research 38(1), 30-44, 2001; authors Dilip Soman and John T. Gourville.
Soman and Gourville propose that price bundling decouples transaction costs from benefits, reducing attention to sunk costs and lowering the likelihood of consuming a prepaid service. In two laboratory studies a bundled four-day ski pass, compared with four single-day tickets, made people less likely to ski on the last day; a field study found holders of multi-performance theatre tickets more likely to miss a given show than holders of single tickets. A fourth study points to cognitive and motivational explanations. Journal of Marketing Research 38(1), 30-44, 2001; authors Dilip Soman and John T. Gourville.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex, 2026-11-03; full text not read.
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Soman, D., & Gourville, J. T. (2001). Transaction decoupling: How price bundling affects the decision to consume. Journal of Marketing Research, 38(1), 30-44. doi:10.1509/jmkr.38.1.30.18828 https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.38.1.30.18828