Question

Why is knowledge of the product life cycle important for a retail buyer or merchandising executive?

Provide a specific example of how the product life cycle impacts key merchandising decisions in each part of the product life cycle.

Answer 1

Merchandising executive at a retail outlet typically focus on a variety of goods being offered by the retailers, explain these goods to the customer, enact their interest in the goods and finally tries to make them buy the goods.

The product life cycle is an important thing which typically depicts that in which phase a product is in currently and it helps them in making their strategy of sales promotion, putting some discount on it or come up with some offers etc.

Example: A Mobile phone which was introduced six months back and earn a good reputation and it is in the maturity stage of the product life cycle means that people buy this product without being convenience as they know the feedback on this mobile phone as a review or word of mouth. So a sales retailer will not focus more on this product but at the same time some of the stock of other mobile phone is available at the store which is in declining phase than retailer comes out with various schemes to sell these so that stock can be cleared before it becomes obsolete