Provision of Optional versus Standard Product Features in Competition
研究高低质量品牌在产品线中为何有的将功能设为标配、有的设为选配，通过模型和汽车市场数据发现低质量品牌更倾向提供选配，高质量品牌则倾向标配。
Competing brands differ in the extent to which they offer a given feature as standard or optional in their product lines. In this article, the authors study the competitive basis for this difference in brands’ product line strategies. Specifically, they analyze the relationship between a brand's quality image and its propensity to offer a wider product line, from a relatively stripped-down base model to a more feature-rich model. They develop a conceptual framework and hypotheses by considering an analytical model with two vertically differentiated firms: They show that a low-quality firm would offer a feature as optional—that is, it would offer both a feature-added product and a stripped-down base product—if it chose to add the feature to its product. In contrast, a high-quality firm would offer the feature as a standard component unless the cost of the feature was high. This asymmetry in the propensity of high- and low-quality firms to offer optional and standard features with their products is tested using data from the U.S. passenger car market; the authors find empirical support for their model.