Buying a pair of blouse and shorts (or skirt) is always cheaper than buying just a the bouse or just the shorts. The boutique attendant in the mall said that their manager encourages the purchase of the combination since it is more appropriate. When only the blouse is sold, sometimes the shorts is not sold anymore. But amid that talk, I wonder why the short has its own tag price likewise with the blouse. If they intend to sell it as a pair then they should have 1 tag price for the entire set.
I guess it's to have that option for people who only really want one of the two items, maybe it's just the blouse or the shorts. I always end up buying the set just because I always fall for that thinking that, "Hey, they're supposed to be a set anyway." Haha! If they won't put a separate price tag for the two, then they might end up losing some potential clients. That's the downside, I guess. My suggestion would be for them to set a price tag for buying the set, maybe a cheaper price as compared to buying just one of the two items. Like, you can save money if you buy the two items completely. That could work in their favour and they could entice more customers this way. Sadly, I don't really see them doing this especially with brands like Forever 21 or H&M. Come to think of it, I cannot recall of any brand doing this.
The answer is simple, it's because they are motivated by profit, so they will price the item in such a way that they will gain the maximum profit from it, that's why they have 2 different price tags, since buying a clothing item separately would be more expensive than buying one individually.
They do this for several reasons. A) Bigger Profit and B) They don't want those who want to buy only part of the outfit to feel obligated to buy the whole outfit....they would get less sales that way