SESSION 5:PRODUCT MIX

 Product Mix

Product Mix is the full set of products offered for sale by an organization. The product mix includes all product lines and categories. It may be defined more narrowly in specific cases to mean only that set of products in a particular product line or a particular market.  It is basically the variety of products the company has to offer.

The four dimensions to a company's product mix include width, length, depth and consistency.

Width: The width of a company's product mix pertains to the number of product lines that a company sells. For example, if a company has two product lines, its product mix width is two. Small and upstart businesses will usually not have a wide product mix. It is more practical to start with some basic products and build market share. Later on, a company's technology may allow the company to diversify into other industries and build the width of the product mix.
since HUL serves 11 lines of products ranging from coffee, laundry to skin care,hence the width is 12.

Length: Product mix length pertains to the number of total products or items in a company's product mix, according to Philip Kotler's textbook "Marketing Management". For example, ABC company may have two product lines, and five brands within each product line. Thus, ABC's product mix length would be 10. Companies that have multiple product lines will sometimes keep track of their average length per product line. In the above case, the average length of an ABC Company's product line is five.
if we talk about HUL, it has 4 variants in soaps, and 4 in body washes, which makes the length to be 30 .

Depth: Depth of a product mix pertains to the total number of variations for each product. Variations can include size, flavor and any other distinguishing characteristic. For example, if a company sells three sizes and two flavors of toothpaste, that particular brand of toothpaste has a depth of six. Just like length, companies sometimes report the average depth of their product lines; or the depth of a specific product line. So lux has 4 variants: 1. peach and cream 2. strawberry and cream 3. purple lotus 4. lux international , and are in 2 sizes, hence the depth is 8

Consistency: Product mix consistency pertains to how closely related product lines are to one another--in terms of use, production and distribution. A company's product mix may be consistent in distribution but vastly different in use. For example, a small company may sell its health bars and health magazine in retail stores. However, one product is edible and the other is not. The production consistency of these products would vary as well.