Marketing- product life cycle

A product life cycle has three stages. These are the introductory stage, the growth stage, the maturity stage and the decline stage. One product that has gone through the entire product stage is the typewriter.

The introductory stage of the product life cycle is the most important stage in the product life cycle. It involves the promotion of the product in the market. It ensures that consumers know about the product so that they can go out and buy it. The introduction is done through either one of two strategies; the penetration strategy and the skimming strategy. If the penetration strategy is used, the product prices are set high and then lowered slowly over time. It is preferred if a product that is very new in the market and for which there are no competitors. Once high sales are achieved and production costs made manageable, the prices are lowered. The skimming strategy may be used if the product is relatively familiar in the market. In this case, the product prices are set very low and then raised over time. In this strategy, gaining a good market following is the most important part and the profits are only made in later stages

(Windrum & Birchenhall, 1998).

The growth stage mainly involves advertising. It is important for the producer to make the product as familiar and preferred as possible to the consumer.

If a product is able to go through the first two stages, it is likely to spend a lot of time in the maturity stage. During the maturity stage, growth is very fast and the product starts to stabilize. During this stage, the most important thing is to differentiate your product from others so that it has an advantage over others in the competition (Klepper, 1996).

The decline stage is the final stage of the product life cycle. During this stage, sales start to fall. It comes as a result of either saturation f the market with your product or innovation of new products that replace yours. At this stage, for a company to stay afloat, it should cut costs as low as possible

(Tibben-Lembke, 2002).

 For a camper, the most important issues are survival and self care. A good capers kit should enable the camper to carry enough food for the period of camping. A campers kit would comprise of each of the following; breakfast on the go kit, 3 pieces of lipton teabags, a hand sanitizer, a piece of chicken of the sea pink salmon and male or female personal care kit. and travel bag. This combination is sufficient to prepare a lunch package, breakfast and supper and also serve for personal care.

Some items create complementary demand for others. A good example is the purchase o f sweeteners. If one buys sweeteners, a complementary demand of tea, coffee or cocoa products is created.

There other products which supplement each other. These are mainly products that belong to the same category. A good example is the purchase of cold drink mixes which would supplement beverages and sweeteners. This is because a person may opt to choose a product that is easier to prepare like the cold drink mixes.

References

Klepper, S. (1996). Entry, Exit, Growth, and Innovation over the Product Life Cycle.

Tibben-Lembke, R. S. (2002). Life after death: reverse logistics and the product life cycle. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management.

Windrum, P., & Birchenhall, C. (1998). Is product life cycle theory a special case? Dominant designs and the emergence of market niches through coevolutionary-learning. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics.