Product Life Cycle

The Product Life Cycle (PLC) is used to map the lifespan of a product. There are generally four stages in the life of a product. These four stages are the Introduction stage, the Growth stage, the Maturity stage and the Decline stage. The following graph illustrates the four stages of the PLC:

There is no set time period for the PLC and the length of each stage may vary. One product's entire life cycle could be over in a few months. Another product could last for years. Also, the Introduction stage may last much longer than the Growth stage and vice versa.

The Four Stages of the Product Life Cycle

1. Introduction: The Introduction stage is probably the most important stage in the PLC. In fact, most products that fail do so in the Introduction stage. This is the stage in which the product is initially promoted. Public awareness is very important to the success of a product. If people don't know about the product they won't go out and buy it.

There are two different strategies you can use to introduce your product to consumers.

• You can use either a penetration strategy or a skimming strategy. If a penetration strategy is used then prices are set very high initially and then gradually lowered over time. This is a good stategy to use if there are few competitors for your product. Profits are high with this strategy but there is also a great deal of risk. If people don't want to pay high prices you may lose out.

• The second pricing strategy is a skimming strategy. In this case you set your prices very low at the beginning and then gradually increase them. This is a good strategy to use if there are alot of competitors who control a large portion of the market. Profits are not a concern under this strategy. The most important thing is to get you product known and worry about making money at a later time.

2. Growth: If you are lucky enough to get your product out of the Introduction stage you then enter this stage. The Growth stage is where your product starts to grow. In this stage a very large amount of money is spent on advertising. You want to concentrate of telling the consumer how much better your product is than your competitors' products.

There are several ways to advertise your product. You can use TV and radio commercials, magazine and newspaper ads, or you could get lucky and customers who have bought your product will give good word-of-mouth to their friends/family.

If you are successful with your advertising strategy then you will see an increase in sales. Once your sales begin to increase you share of the market will stabilize. Once you get to this point you will probably not be able to take anymore of the market from your competitors.

3. Maturity: The third stage in the Product Life Cycle is the maturity stage. If your product completes the Introduction and Growth stages then it will then spend a great deal of time in the Maturity stage. During this stage sales grow at a very fast rate and then gradually begin to stabilize. The key to surviving this stage is differentiating your product from the similar products offered by your competitors. Due to the fact that sales are beginning to stabilize you must make your product stand out among the rest.

4. Decline: This is the stage in which sales of your product begin to fall. Either everyone that wants to has bought your product or new, more innovative products have been created that replace yours. Many companies decide to withdrawal their products from the market due to the downturn. The only way to increase sales during this period is to

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