Product Life Cycle (Edexcel IGCSE Business)

Development

• The focus is on designing and developing the product
  
  
• The business usually incurs high costs for research and development, market research, and product testing

• Marketing strategy during this stage is focused on creating awareness and generating interest in the product

Introduction

• The stage begins when the product is launched
   
• Characterised by slow sales growth as the product is still new and unknown to most consumers 

• Marketing efforts are focused on creating awareness and generating interest in the product

Growth

• The product enters this stage when sales begin to increase rapidly
   
• The business focus shifts to building market share and increasing production to meet this growing demand 

• The marketing strategy is to differentiate the product from its competitors and build brand loyalty

Maturity

• Characterised by high sales but slowing sales growth 
  
  
• Market saturation is likely 

• The marketing strategy aims to maintain market share and increase profitability by cutting costs and finding new markets

Decline

• Starts when sales begin to decline as the product becomes obsolete or is replaced by newer products
   
• The business focus shifts to managing the product's decline and reducing costs

• The marketing strategy may involve discontinuing the product, reducing prices to clear stock or finding new uses for the product

Product-related

• Changing or modifying the product to make it more appealing to customers 
  
  
• This could involve improving or adding features, increasing capacity or redesigning its appearance

• Product improvements e.g. Samsung releases new versions of its Galaxy Smartphone every year with upgraded features and improvements to the previous model
  
  
• Line extensions e.g. Coca-Cola introduced Diet Coke and Coke Zero as line extensions of its original Coca-Cola
  
  
• Repositioning e.g. when IBM's personal computer division started losing market share to other brands, it repositioned its products as high-end business machines and focused on the enterprise market
   

Promotion-related

• Changing promotional activity related to the product 
  
  
• This could involve changes to advertising, different pricing tactics or attractive sales promotions

• Changes to advertising e.g Kellogg's continues to recreate adverts for its Corn Flakes cereal which has been around since 1906
  
  
• Price promotions e.g. Cyber Monday occurs on the first Monday after Thanksgiving in the USA and electronic firms discount prices significantly in order to boost sales of their products
  
  
• Sales promotions e.g. many coffee shops offer a loyalty program where customers can earn a free drink for every six drinks consumed