PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE

Product Life Cycle

Product Life Cycle

Introduction

The product life cycle is used to determine the current market position of the organisation and how its different components adapt and evolve to suit its current position. There are four stages to the product life cycle, introduction, growth, maturity and decline. The introductory period reflects the difficulty in introducing a new product. Rapid growth then occurs as many new investors are attracted leading to saturation of the product, whilst decline may occur as new substitute products appear (Doyle, 1994).

Barnes and Noble entered the market in 1997 and was a pioneer in e-commerce. As a ...