Product Life Cycle Strategies:

There are two alternative product life cycle strategies: 

1. Product modification strategy
2. Product abandonment strategy

Both of the above strategies should be adopted either during the saturated situation of maturity stage or the beginning of the decline stage. It will be meaningless to adopt these strategies before the saturation stage or during the late declining stage.

1. Product modification strategy:

There are several ways to modify a product. It can be called "new and improved" even after a small change. Generally, product modification can be grouped into four groups:

• Fundamental changes
• Quality changes
• Style changes
• Socio-ecological changes 

Fundamental changes:

Fundamental changes mean making a product work better or adding new needs or utilities to the product. for example; the existing product of the marketer is a shampoo which has functions like cleaning dandruff, making complexion fair, and making fresh. To make this product more potential and marketable, the marketer can add another utility also, say it 'checks hair fall'. In this case, customers having hair fall may be attracted towards this product, and thus additional demand is created.

Quality change:

Quality change means a change of materials to be used in producing a product. This may change the performance of the product. Quality may be moved up or down depending upon the objective of the firm and market situation. If a firm wants to build up the image or position of the product, quality will be improved and vice versa.

Style change:

In this modern era, the product should satisfy not only the hands and mouths of the customer but also their eyes and minds, These days modernity and style have a high value. Therefore, by changing the appearance also a product can be modified. Change in design, shape, or the combination of colors, packaging, brand, arts, etc are examples of style change.

Socio-ecological changes:

Socio-ecological changes refer to the changes to improve product safely carried out to increase consumer receptiveness in response to government pressure or because of the social awareness of the company. It is for the sake of product safety or ecological impact. So, they are done especially in health safeguarding products (foods, medicines, child-proof drug bottles, shampoo, etc) safety products (such as tractors, medicines, machinery, vehicles, etc), or ecological products (such as diesel vehicles that may pollute the air, fertilizers, and chemicals that may pollute soil, biodegradable detergents, dye chemicals that may water, etc). 

2. Product abandonment strategy:

If a marketer thinks that even modifying a product cannot improve market position, s/he may drop or abandon product from the line and introduce a new product in the market. This may be a difficult job because dipping product from the line overnight is not possible; it requires a system in order to be carried out efficiently. It is an expensive job because it may cause a huge loss since the investment may not be recovered; rather, additional expenses are to be made to complete the abandonment process. And, it is a risky job because it may kill the voice of customers and damage image of wholesalers and retailers, as such; they may take legal actions against the product withdrawal.