Product life cycle

Probably the best time to launch a product is when the demand it is high, a consequence of the analysis of the market, competition, technology and other important aspects that determine its success. The sale of a product should never be created and started if a conscientious study has not been carried out before, since this will determine, to a large extent, its success or failure.

The Life cycle of a product corresponds to an analysis in the trend of the evolution of its sales; from the moment it is launched until the product is withdrawn from the market. Each of the four stages of a product life cycle defines different stages with particular characteristics.

Below we show you the four stages of the life cycle of a product, and we comment on the characteristics of each one:

–Introduction: In this first stage, the product in question is launched on the market for the first time and, as commonly happens, sales are scarce. For this reason, the manufacture of the product must be limited in order to verify its acceptance. In addition, it is during the introduction stage that the greatest amount of resources is allocated to advertising. Some of the traditional sectors that are dedicated to the development of this phase are: sound, biotechnology, and all those related to computer science and electronics.

–Increase: In this second stage, the product already launched on the market has received considerable acceptance in the market and the limited production in the first stage is transformed into a production carried out based on the real demand of the customers. In the growth stage, production is also usually diversified, in order to develop variants of the original model or other similar products, in order to compete in a better way in the market and to be able to improve the relationship with the client.

–Maturity: In this third phase, product sales remain stable and a point is reached where production (and sales) cannot progress further; it may even be necessary to lower costs in order to maintain a correct profit. At this point, advertising should focus, not on considerably increasing the sale of the product, but keeping the attention on it.

–Slope: In this fourth and final phase, an "abandonment" of the product must be carried out, especially if the The situation that arises is that it has not been possible to reduce the cost of production (to increase the Benefits). At this stage, advertising begins to lose its value; and it can only be used to minimize losses by a certain percentage. It can be tried, through innovation and diversification to be able to focus again and be able to optimize profits; however, you should not try to recoup the gains that were made with the product during its maturity, as this can lead to a significant financial loss.