Thinking of introducing new products? Here is what ecommerce entrepreneurs looking to introduce new product lines need to know about success and failure.
The trick to successfully introducing a new product line in your ecommerce website is (a) customer demand and (b) ensuring that demand is strong enough for you to make money from the new product line.
Spending time researching the market is essential when thinking of introducing new product lines. The more research you conduct, the less risk you face.
An interesting statistic: on average, out of every 100 proposed new product ideas conceived by manufacturers, 39 begin the development process, 17 survive it, eight reach the marketplace and only one achieves the objectives behind introducing the product in the first place.
Why do new products fail?
Here are the most common reasons why new product lines fail:
- the potential market was overestimated
- customers saw the product as too expensive
- the product was poorly designed
- the product was no different to the competition’s (“me too” products)
- the costs of developing the product line were too high
Why do new products succeed?
- the product is seen to be unique and/or superior to its competition
- the market was analysed properly, ensuring the product is suitable
- all stages of a successful product launch were addressed
A good litmus test for deciding how much time to spend researching your potential new product line is its cost: the more expensive the product, the more time you should spend researching whether it is worth introducing the product.
For more on how to introduce new product lines, read our article: Six steps to successfully introduce a new product line.
The bottom line? To introduce a new product line, you need to sell what your customers want – not what you want to sell.
