Livestock Economics, Marketing and Business Management

MERCHANDISING-PRODUCT PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Merchandising

• It is the barometer of efficiency in buying and selling and it is closely related to several aspects of buying and stock management.

Product Planning and Development

• Product planning covers a broad area of decisions including product-line planning, introduction of new products, deletion of the product from product-line, product modification, packaging, labeling, branding etc.,

Alternative growth stages

• Marketers have four alternative ways for growth in sales and profits
  • Market penetration
  • Market development
  • Product development and
  • Product diversification.

New product development process

• Most of the successful companies employ one or more of the following alternatives in locating organizational responsibility for new product development.
  • New product committees / departments
  • Product mangers/ venture teams.
• There are seven stages for new product development process such as Idea generation, Screening, Concept development and testing, Business analysis, Product development, Test marketing and Commercialization.

Product Development programme

• This is an important stage in atleast three ways i.e.
  • It marks the first attempt to develop the product in a 'concrete form'
  • It represents a huge investment for developing a technically feasible product.
  • Lastly, it provides an answer as to whether the product idea can be translated into a technical and commercially feasible product.
• Primarily there are four steps involved in the product development stage: (i.e) Engineering, Consumer testing, Branding and Packaging.
• Other activities involved in the product development stage are
  • formulation of preliminary advertising and promotion programme,
  • trade merchandising programme,
  • application for patent and copy rights etc.
• Systematic planning of all phases of new product development and introduction can be accomplished through the use of such scheduling methods as the
  • Programme Evaluation and Review Technique(PERT) and
  • Critical Path Method (CPM)