Vintage Idea

I was just browsing the book stores and caught sight of the Vintage Twins - A wonderful idea of bundling two books for a combined price. What makes this combination really cool is that there are themes to this twin bundling - Crime, Fantasy, Fear, Lies, Love, Lust, Monsters, Satire, Sin & Youth.

The idea behind this bundling is in pairing a modern classic with an established Classic. So you have crime and punishment being bundled with Ripley's game. There's so much thought behind this idea that we surely must dissect it.

Firstly, the "why", may be someone in Vintage saw that their established Classics weren't selling as much as their contemporary classics, and thought, bundling the two with a theme binding both the books was a good way to ensure sales. But the "story" being weaved through some good branding is the message of revival of established classics.

"The Greatest Books of ALL time twinned with the greatest books of OUR time"

Furthermore, they say "the books have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination". fair enough. I personally think its a very clever idea. Most established classics, if they aren't classroom prescribed reading material, are rarely read, because of the perceived old-fashionedness of language. Established classics need a revival because this is the era of best sellers. Infact Anna Karenina had a mini revival after Oprah put it on her book club.

But bundling itself is an interesting concept that can be applied in any line of business - be it FMCG or in a Tech Product Market. Any product manager will tell you that bundling is a great way to test new products in a market or to up sales of a product that is showing sluggishness. What bundling does is offer a path of of least resistance to the customer.

3 important aspects of bundling methinks:
1. Bundling can only be successful if one of the products in the bundle is a hugely successful product. No point bundling two weak selling products together or 2 strong ones for that matter. the former is ofcourse, obvious, both together will never sell and the latter is a sure fire way of cutting your margin down
2. Another important aspect for a bundling strategy to work is that the combo has to be complimentary to each other. Bundling a shampoo and conditioner makes sense where as bundling Tea and conditioner does not.
3.The consumer defintely must feel like the combo is worth it. It must be value for money

These are my 2 cents worth on the concept of bundling, I would sure love to hear other views on this!