This paper studies probabilistic selling with vertically differentiated products when firms compete and consumers anticipate the potential post-purchase regret raised by possibly obtaining the inferior products. Intuitively, anticipated regret hurts the attractiveness of probabilistic selling....

We study a duopoly vertical competition in which one firm sells a transparent product and the other sells an uncertain product that may induce consumer feelings. We identify a neutrality condition under which those feelings do not affect either firm’s profit, but this neutrality can be broken....