• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.1-24
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• 2019

This study confirms the responses of consumers when the composition of emoticon bundles can be selected by individuals in MIM service. This aims to verify that customized bundling is a valid marketing strategy in the MIM emoticon market. Currently, the emoticon bundling used in Korean MIM services is in the form of pure bundling. As a result, Consumers must purchase an entire bundle even though he/she doesn't need to use all the emoticons contained in it. Some researches(e.g. Hitt & Chen, 2005; Wu & Anandalingam, 2002) show that when consumers value only part of the products or services included in pure bundling, customized bundling is much more profitable. In their works, customized bundling is appropriate when marginal costs are near zero. Information goods, such as emoticons, meet the condition. On the other hand, customized bundling increase the choosable options, so it can pose a problem of complexity (Blecker et al., 2004). And consumers may experience information overload(Huffman & Kahn, 1998). Thus, judgement on the necessity to introduce customized bundling needs to be made through empirical analyses in the light of characteristics of the product and the reaction of consumers. Results show that when customized bundling was introduced, consumers' purchase intention and willingness to pay significantly increased. Purchase intention for customized bundles has increased by 0.44 based on the five point Likert scale than the purchase intention for existing pure bundles. The increase in purchase intention for customized bundles was statistically independent of the existing purchasing experience. In addition, the willingness to pay was increased by about 2.8% compared to the price of the existing emoticon bundles in the whole group. The group with experience in purchasing pure bundles were willing to pay 5.9% more than pure bundles. The other group without experience in purchasing pure bundles were willing to buy if they were about 5% cheaper than the existing price. Overall, introducing customized bundling into emoticon bundles can lead to positive consumers responses and be a viable marketing strategy.