Chapter 12.4, Problem 1PC

Summary Introduction

To determine: The marketing characteristics of various products as well as the services at each stage of the product lifecycle.

Introduction: The product lifecycle deciphers various stages involved in the life cycle of the product that is between the time it enters the market and exit from it. The life cycle of a product includes four stages that are the introduction of a product in the market, growth, maturity of the product and the declining stage.

Answer to Problem 1PC

The characteristics of the products and the services in the marketplace at various stages of the product lifecycle are summarized in the table below:

	Introduction	Growth	Maturity	Decline
Sales	Low	Rising	Peak	Declining
Profits	Negative to low	Rapidly rising	Peak to declining	Declining
Typical consumers	Innovators	Early adopters and early majority	Late majority	Laggards
Competitors	One or few	Few but increasing	The high number of competitors	The low number of competitors

Table (1)

Explanation of Solution

The different stages of the product lifecycle are depicted in the figure given below:

Fig (1)

The first stage of the product lifecycle is the introduction stage of the product in the market where the sales, as well as the profits from the sale, is almost negligible. The innovators in the market are the only customers of the product and face competition from one or the other firm of its type.

The second stage is the growth of the product in the market and so it faces a rise in the sale and the profit margins. The customers are the early majority of the population that results in an increasing number of competitors of the product in the marketplace.

The third is the maturity stage of the product, the firm experiences the highest of the sales as well as the profit margins. Up to this level, the late majority fraction of population also joins the trail and thus the firm experiences the highest number of competitive firms in the marketplace.

The last stage is the sale, as well as the profit margin of the product, begins to decline and it then keeps on declining. The customers at this time are mainly the laggards and hence the firm has the least competition in the marketplace.

Conclusion

Therefore, it can be concluded that the different characteristics of the product, as well as the services in the market, are mainly the sale, profits, the customer base and the competition of firms with other firms in the market.