Versioning goods and joint purchase: substitution and complementary strategies

Abstract

We analyze the monopolist’s decision about how to design different versions of a good, i.e. whether to make them substitutes or complements, when consumers can buy them simultaneously. In this context, we find that versioning goods as substitutes or complements may be optimal for the monopolist, and the final result depends on the degree of concavity and convexity of the cost function.