Product Life-Cycle

Product Life-Cycle

Just as in the life of a man, there occur ups and downs per­taining to different age-groups, which we designate as the childhood, adolescence, young age and the old age, likewise, any commodity or product could be divided into various stages like the invention, its progress, maturity, downfall and out-of-use. Such kind of ups and downs might be designated as the life-cycle of the product. In other words, it might also be said that through whatever different stages is every product required to pass, is known as its life-cycle.

The life of any product really begins when it is presented into the market for being sold off. Gradually its demand goes up and that product reaches the top of its progress. But, thereafter, its demand begins to go down. It is the state of its decline. These are really speaking, the stages of the life-cycle of the product.

The following are some of the main definitions of the product life-cycle.

In the opinion of Philip Kotler, The life-standard of a product tries to admit that there are various stages in the sales-history of its product. The sales-history passes through four stages: introduc­tion, expansion, maturity and the decline.

Arc Penton has felt that the life-cycle of commodity has u1milm-ity with the human life-cycle in several matters; the product is born, its increase is rapid, it reaches the most advanced stage of maturity and thereafter it again reaches the stage of downfall or decline.

Stages of the Product Life-Cycle

The following are the various stages of the product life-cycle:

(1)   Introduction. In this introductory stage, effort is made for increasing the primary demand through the media of advertisement sales-promotion and other means: In it the people are en­couraged to use the product on trial basis. Continuous struggle is required to be made in this stage. In it, the quantum of profit is equivalent to almost nil. The main cause for it is that costs in the beginning are higher but the, quantity of sales is less.

(2)   Expansion of Market. In the first stage of the product life-cycle whatever expenses are incurred and the efforts made, bring the consumers' recognition to the product. Hence, there is a rapid increase in the sales and profits. Looking to the swelling profits and sales, growing demands, the competition also begins to increase. When innumerable producers come into the market, all of them try to make their brands popular among the people.

(3)   Maturity. In this stage, the increase in the sales con­tinues to go ox, but the rate of increase declines and the profit too starts declining. Competition becomes very intense and serious. Due to the competition, the prices also begin to fall down. In this stage, the small manufacturers disappear.

(4)   Market Downfall. This is the last stage of the product life-cycle, in which the sale of the goods becomes much low, since new and developed things come into the market. Many manufac­turers close down their business. The new manufacturers come in the market, bringing their new products.

Factors Influencing the Product Life-Cycle

The following are some of the main factors influencing the product life-cycle:

(1)  Speed or Rate of Technological Changes. The speed with which the technological changes take place in any country, in­fluence the product life-cycle. In a country like India, the life of any commodity is longer for the reason that here the speed of technologi­cal changes is quite slow while in the advanced countries; the life of a product is shorter because due to the technological development and change, the place of all old product is taken by the new product, very soon.

(2)  Speed of Market-Acceptance. With what speed do the, customers accept or admit any product, is also the criterion upon, which the product life-cycle depends. If anything is quickly accepted by the customers despite its being new, the life-cycle of the old product itself is reduced.

(3)  Entry of Competing Products. There is also the impact of entry of the competing products upon the product life-cycle. If the new competing products enter the market speedily and more fre­quently, then due to this factor, the product life-cycle of the old com­modity shall be reduced automatically.

(4)  Protection by the patents. Such products that are sold under some registered patents generally have much longer life-cycle as compared to the other commodities.

(5)  Economic Powers. In the opinion of Arc Panton, The economic power too influences the product life-cycle.