Tying

Categories: Banking

An important skill in both sailing and romance.

Also, an often-illegal marketing strategy. Tying involves connecting the purchase of two unrelated products in different markets. In other words, to get a product they want, a customer has to buy a separate product they...don't.

You run a large drug manufacturer. You’ve developed a new cancer drug. You are the only company offering the treatment, giving you a monopoly. But for every dose of cancer drug a patient wants to buy, you make them buy a case of your stool-loosener. Your only goal is to drive sales of the stool-loosener, which doesn't have any relation to the cancer drug. (In fact, one of the side effects of the cancer drug is a runny rectum.)

Cases of tying aren't always obvious. They can be obscured by the fact that there's a perfectly legal, similar-seeming practice known as bundling. You have to buy a certain amount of data to get a cell phone plan...that's an example of bundling. It's not illegal, because the products are related. It makes sense.

Tying involves a more naked use of market leverage and outright greed. It's a grey line, but tying is considered a monopolistic practice, while bundling is not.



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