Prepared by a marketing lecturer, designed for university-level students
Often students want to graph multiple products onto the product life cycle using an Excel spreadsheet or some other charting approach. Perhaps surprisingly, this is sometimes awkward to … Read more...
As it is possible to use the product life cycle as a portfolio analysis tool, which allows us to consider whether we have adequately provided for the future profitability for the firm/brand, it is an obvious that there is … Read more...
While the product life cycle model is a very helpful tool for helping to understand current and potential market conditions, in order to develop appropriate marketing and competitive strategies, there are some limitations and concerns with the usage of the … Read more...
One of the challenges of a mature market in the PLC is that, more than likely, eventually the firm will be faced with competition from new style of product. That is, the most significant competitors are going to introduce technology … Read more...
In order to assess where a product is on the PLC curve, a multiple of factors can be considered, including:
This website has discussed consumer innovators numerous times, due to their importance in generating product adoption and kick-starting the introduction phase of the product life cycle. While innovators are the initial type of consumer, there are other consumer mindsets that … Read more...
There is a strong relationship between the product adoption process and the product life cycle. Both consider new to the world products – the product adoption process considers the “stage” that the consumer is in relative to the product – … Read more...
Underpinning the pattern of sales in the product life cycle is how consumers adopt new products. Not all new products are successful, indeed, most new products will fail. For example, even Apple has its fair share of failed products.… Read more...
Do we have an appropriate balance of existing products in a mature market, and are we investing in future new product opportunities by entering products into introduction and growth stage markets? … Read more...
It is likely, in the introduction phase of the product life cycle, that there are limited numbers of competitors. At this stage of the PLC, the level of sales and profits in the market are … Read more...
One of the key marketing challenges in the introduction phase of the product life cycle (PLC) is to clearly communicate the advantages and benefits of the new product offering, relative to existing products … Read more...
Having survived the significant competitive battle of the growth stage, firms are looking for stability and ongoing profitability and to leverage their “cash cows”. It is also likely, in most well-managed firms, that they have … Read more...
In the growth stage of the PLC there is a limited degree of customer loyalty. This is because most customers are “first-time consumers” and have no direct experience purchasing the product.
This means that in a growth market, it … Read more...
The growth phase follows a successful introduction stage. There is no guarantee that a new product will be successful – therefore, not all new products will have a growth phase.
However, provided that the … Read more...
In a mature market, potentially entering the decline stage of the product life cycle, larger firms may be in a position to try and rethink the overall positioning of a product in … Read more...
Following the maturity stage of the PLC, many products at some point will enter the decline stage. The decline stage is a significant reduction in sales volumes. Typically this occurs for two main reasons:
One of the key challenges for the firm during the introduction phase, given the important role of innovators, is the limited level of sales and likely negative profitability. This occurs because only a small proportion of consumers – the … Read more...
Marketers of new products seeking to gain traction for their offering are reliant upon a category of consumers that are classified as “innovators”. Innovators are consumers that are far less influenced by word-of-mouth for … Read more...
