The Perceived Value of Value Meals

This study provides a new explanation as to why restaurants frequently sell value meals along with the meals' components separately. We argue that beyond the traditional economic model of extracting the surplus from customers with extreme valuation for particular dishes, mixed bundling unintentionally creates a decoy price effect. With mixed bundling, the value meal might seem more attractive than with pure bundling, generating more profits for the restaurant. The combination of extracting additional consumer surplus and the increased demand due to decoy pricing makes the mixed bundling strategy a highly valuable marketing tool for restaurants. We test the theory by measuring subjects' willingness to pay for value meals while varying the prices of the meal's components that appear separately on the menu. The results strongly support our prediction that customers' willingness to pay for a value meal can be manipulated by controlling the price of the components.