Bundling

Bundling is the practice of selling two or more goods or services together as a single package, typically at a combined price or with added convenience. Bundles appear in consumer markets, business-to-business sales, and digital contexts, and are used to increase perceived value, simplify purchasing, and encourage larger transactions.

In economics, bundling concepts distinguish pure bundling and mixed bundling. Pure bundling offers only the bundled package, while mixed bundling allows purchase of components separately. Bundling can affect consumer surplus, price discrimination, and market efficiency. It can improve producer margins when synergies exist, but may reduce flexibility and consumer choice. Regulatory scrutiny can arise if bundling is used to foreclose competition or raise prices unjustifiably.

In computing, bundling describes packaging software components into a single distribution. This includes library bundles, runtime environments, and asset bundles for web applications. Module bundlers combine multiple source files into one or more bundles to reduce network requests and improve load times, but larger bundles can increase initial download size and complicate updates. Licensing and dependency management risks are also considerations.

In telecommunications and media, bundles commonly group voice, internet, and television services, or channels and content, with the aim of improving customer retention and simplifying billing. Bundling strategies vary by market and regulation and may include promotions, tiered access, or bundled pricing.