Many businesses view cannibalization as the most dreaded issue but there is a counter to it. Many businesses believe they must cannibalize their own products or the competition will do it for them. You can counter cannibalization by making your older products unique and desirable to extend their product life cycle.
Many companies cannibalize their own products at some time in the future. You can definitely create your own little product niche from older products to counter cannibalization. Your older products can be reduced tremendously in price to make it cheap and affordable. This way your old products can capture the low income consumers while the latest products can capture the high income consumers.
Counter cannibalization by making your older products special again. You can reduce the old products price tremendously to tap a new market or make them unique again. Make your old products popular by making it cheap, reliable and unique in order to extend the product life cycle. If you can do it, there is little to no cannibalization because your old products are capturing a new market.
Make your own product niche from your old products to counter cannibalization. Your old products can tap a new market with just a little innovation. Cannibalization doesn’t sound so scary if you think outside the box.
4 Comments
this may be a problem if your product is a brand. Lowering prices even on older products may bring down the value of the brand. i in general prefer to discontinue a product rather than lowering the price. of course I can afford it only because I do not keep stock …
If there is no brand value involved or if someone is confident tinkering with prices will not harm the image of the brand that is a different story and one can go on cannibal spree
This is actually taking place at Polaroid. They are discontinuing their instant camera, and this is causing a run on the film for that particular camera. They’d rather canabalized then reduse the price.
Biz- Yea it is a big problem that can lower brand image if the product is a brand.
Debo- I guess it was too troublesome for them. Countering cannibalization is really troublesome depending on the product or service.
i really appriciate that we can lower the price of old product to counter cannibalization but same time in case of brand price should be adjusted between tow levels i.e. medium so it gives both counter cannibalization as well as keeps brand name i.e. reputation.