Why Great New Products Fail

Many innovative new products don’t succeed in the marketplace. One common reason: Companies don’t focus enough on understanding how customers evaluate products and make purchase decisions.

By Duncan Simester

Spring 2016

A lot of great new products fail — and companies often wonder why. Although the companies were careful to listen to their customers, the products still failed. This is not a rare occurrence. A recent study of almost 9,000 new products that achieved broad distribution at a national retailer revealed that just 40% of them were still sold three years later.¹ (See “About the Research.”) Some of these products did not create value for customers and deserved to fail. However, many would have created value ...