Decline Stage

The last stage in the manufactured goods life cycle is send regrets. During this stage, product sales starts to drop off, and the rate at which they reduce is honestly interrelated to the cause that precipitate the onset of the refuse stage. If a new substitute product enter the market and renders the original product outdated, product sales might decrease more piercingly. Consider, as a design, the case of music CDs replace tapes and LP records. If, however, there are more gradual changes in the original customer need, this condition might bring about a slower reduce in sales. For example, DVD players are touching at a slower rate to replace VCRs, incompletely because footage capability was not introduce until five years after the manufactured goods came to market. Now that DVD manufacturers are counting this feature, the decline in VCR sales will almost certainly augment.

Once the refuse stage is under way, microeconomic factors can precipitate an even speedier decline. If demand for a product decreases, an excess provide can cause prices to drop. In addition, a decrease in command also eliminates the economies of scale reimbursement the product once enjoyed, again making it less gainful (see Economics chapter). Since all managers fight with scarce resources, a product in the decline stage generally receives less marketing and the pro- motion dollars are allocated to furnish a more profitable product. The combination of this entire factor can increase the swiftness of the refuse phase. For example, children's toys have a speedy life cycle. After sales of a toy start to drop off, toy companies transfer their pains and advertising dollars to the season's hot toy, abandon the slow seller. The product life cycle allows managers to read external signals to distinguish the phase of life of their produce. Insight into where a product is on the life cycle enables marketing professionals to direct the current phase more successfully, as well as to plan ahead for future phases.  For these reasons, and many others, the product life cycle is one of the most ordinary and long-lived tools used in marketing today.