During each stage of a product's life cycle, the types and levels of sales, profits, and competition rise, peak, and eventually decline. The product life cycle defines the stages that new products move through as they enter, are established in, and ultimately leave the marketplace. In their life cycles, products pass through four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. The product life cycle offers a useful tool for managers to analyze the types of strategies that may be required over the life of their products. Even the strategic emphasis of a firm and its marketing mix (4Ps) strategies can be adapted from insights about the characteristics of each stage of the cycle.

Read each statement and categorize it by the market attributes and consumer types that characterize each product life cycle stage. Place each item in the correct box on the chart.

Market Attribute

Consumer Types

Introduction stage

Growth stage

Maturity stage

Decline stage

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