I have sometimes speculated that the purpose of the $50 bottles is to make you think that you're being sensible by buying a $20 bottle, when really the $10 bottle is just fine. A few people will certainly buy the $50 bottle, but the real money is in upsale at the lower end.
A corollary to this is a restaurant selling the wine that they acquire for the lowest price at the mid tier price to maximize profit.
A diner choosing a wine will most likely eschew the lowest price option, and obviously the highest price option will be out of most people’s reach, but customers will “spring” for the mid priced option.
A retail shop will put TVs on sale for 50% off but only keep 5 in stock. They advertise it everywhere, 100 people show up looking for cheap TVs, find it's out-of-stock and buy one of the expensive ones that are only 5-10% off.
That sounds like bait and switch. Loss leader fwiw is a product that retailer intentionally and legitimately loses money on, in order to get you into the store where you'll buy other stuff.
20 years ago, Computers were perennially loss leaders at a best buy I worked at. We sold you $2000 computer at a small loss, hoping you'd buy printer paper and cartridges and cables and warsanty.printers are still notorious loss leaders of course.
Right, that's bait and switch. A loss leader would be you selling milk at a loss in order to get people into the store and then get them to buy the high margin cookies as well.
rottisserie chickens for $3.50 in Australian supermarkets are great examples of loss leaders. They get you in there, to buy chicken...and other stuff :)
