Optimal product rollover strategies

Abstract

As product life cycles shortened, many firms introduce new products and phase out old products frequently. To plan for a successful product rollover; i.e., introduce a new product and eliminate an old product successfully, a firm needs to determine the prices of both products as well as the time to launch the new product and the time to phase out the old product. In this paper, we develop an analytical model to analyze the profits associated with two product rollover strategies: single-product rollover and dual-product rollover. The single-product rollover strategy calls for simultaneous introduction of the new product and elimination of the old product. For the dual-product rollover, we introduce the new product first and then phase out the old product eventually. We determine the optimal prices of both products as well as the optimal time to execute these product rollover strategies. Moreover, we determine the conditions under which the dual-product rollover strategy is optimal. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.