What is a product life cycle and how is it relevant to craft businesses?
Many many moons ago I was sat in a marketing lecture at university, being taught the life cycle of products. Like with most things that we are taught at school or beyond it is hard to see how this information will be useful in later life. Well it dawned on me the other day that I may actually put this knowledge into practice.
When you have been selling products for a long time you will come to realise that there are trends that mean that certain products sell. Over time it may be worth reassessing these items for how likely they are to sell. To give you an idea in the first year of me first selling my handmade products fairy jars were all the rage. I made one as a prize for a raffle and soon was inundated with messages asking for some. I sold a ridiculous number of these jars that were just a side product that was made as a special request for a customer.
Fast forward to last week and I was thinking about this product that I made a few years ago. I have sold one in the last three years, therefore it got me thinking that maybe this item has reached the end of it’s selling life. Therefore I can either remove this item from being listed on my online shops. This would be an option as it is costing me to list this item despite not actually selling any.
This would be the case on a selling platform like www.etsy.com or www.ebay.com The other option is that I give this product an upgrade. Have a think about how you could update a product to meet with current trends or change the item into a new product that may be more sought after.
This may get you worried that in the end that every product will come to an end of being sellable. However this may not be the case. I think the technical term used is a cash cow, a product that continues to sell at a steady rate. This is a popular item that will continue to sell at a steady rate despite trends and fashions.
New Products
Everyone’s favourite is a new product that is in height demand at the beginning part of the life cycle. This product will be selling fast with more and more people wanting to have one. This can result in an influx of income as you keep sending your products out. However unfortunately this is more than likely not sustainable. If you think about it if you continue to sell your item at that rate you will eventually everyone will own one and will not need to purchase another one. Therefore customers will start to drop off and the income from this product will start to slow down before decreasing.
What is ideal?
The ideal situation to be in is to have a mixture of products that are at different stages in their life cycle. That way you can keep up with new trends as well as knowing when it is time to stop a product. You will ensure a regular income from your products if you have a mixture as otherwise you run the risk of all your product coming to the end of their life at the same time potentially causing your business to come to an end as well.
To ensure that you know where your products are in their life it is important to keep informed with what is popular and trending. This can be as simple as having a browse of social media to see what things are popping up most frequently.
Have you ever thought about your products and which ones are continual sellers or are maybe coming to the end of their life? What helped you identify them?
If you have liked this post you may be interested in my post on my lessons learnt in craft business https://www.claireyatfairycrafters.com/craft-business-lessons-learnt/
