Product Hierarchy

Need family: What is the basic need being fulfilled? Entertainment. Product family: Leisure. Product class: What all product classes can fulfil the basic need? TV, book, movie, socializing, radio etc. Product line: What are the sub-categories under movies? What are the various types of movies one can watch? Full length feature, animated, short. Product type: What are the sub categories under full length feature? Sci-fi, romance, horror, drama. Item: The specific product which fulfils the need. Star Wars

Product Mix
Product mix is a combination of products manufactured or traded by the same business house to reinforce their presence in the market, increase market share and increase the turnover for more profitability. Normally the product mix is within the synergy of other products for a medium size organization. However large groups of Industries may have diversified products within core competency. Larsen & Toubro Ltd, Godrej, Reliance in India are some of the examples.

1. number of versions offered of each product in the line. Product mix consistency: If companys product lines usage, production and marketing are related, then product Product mix dimensions:The number of product lines and items offered by marketer to the consumers. A companys product mix has four different dimensions. They are product mix width, product mix length, and product mix depth and product mix consistency. 1. Product mix width: The total number of product lines that company offers to the consumers. 2. Product mix length: The total number of items that company carries within its product line. 3. Product line depth: The mix is consistent, else it is unrelated. Product Line Strategies Product line: The group of related products which uses same marketing efforts to reach the consumer.

The product line identifies profitable and unprofitable products and helps in allocation of resources according to that. The product line understanding helps the marketer to take line extension, line pruning and line filling strategies of the company. Pidilite Industries, the adhesives and chemical company, have the following group of related products (or product lines) in consumer and business markets. Consumer market. 1. Adhesives and sealants. 2. Art materials and stationeries. 3. Construction chemicals. 4. Automotive chemicals 5. Fabric care Business market 1. Industrial adhesives. 2. Textile chemicals. 3. Organic pigment powders. 4. Industrial resins and 5. Leather chemicals. Product Line Decisions: The major product line decisions are a. Product line length b. Product line stretching c. Product line filling d. Product line pruning

a. Product line length: The number of items in the product line is called the product
line length. Company should decide whether it requires longer chain or shorter length. The decision depends upon the objective of the company, competitive environment and profitability. If the chain is short company can add new products and if it is lengthy company can reduce the number of products. For example, Pidilites adhesives and sealants line has following 11 items in the product line. Hence the length of product line is 11

1. White Glue 3. Glue Stick 5. Epoxy Putty 7. PVC Insulation Tape 9. Contact Glue 11. Maintenance Spray

2. Paper Glue 4. Instant Adhesive b. Product line stretching: Company 6. Epoxy Adhesive lengthens its product line either by 8. Silicone Sealants stretching upwards or downwards or 10. All Purpose Glue both ways. Line stretching decision depends on three situations -

i. Company which operates in high end market may come up with mid class or low class targeted products. ii. The company which operates in lower end of market may come up with high end market products. iii. If the company operates in mid segment and comes out with low end product as well as high end product then it is stretching both ways. c. Product line filling: Adding more items in the present product line. For example, in the year 2000 Maruti Suzuki launched Alto. This product was between Maruti 800 and Maruti Zen. Here company was trying to fill the gap existing in the segment by introducing ALTO, i.e. line filling. d. Product line pruning: Removing the unprofitable products form the product line. Toyota Kirloskar phased out their well known brand Quails when they thought the brand was not adding value to the product line.