As your business grows, the demand by customers will increase. You can entice customers with your product if you are embedded in a niche. Eventually, you may find people desire something new. This crossroad is where expanding your product range will be the next intelligent step. Expanding your product range might seem lucrative. However, it means adding more SKUs to your inventory. Additional SKUs represent additional processing and steps added to your fulfillment chain. Let’s learn more about the benefits and disadvantages of expanding your product range and what to do to fulfill the new SKUs you introduce efficiently.
What is a Product Range?
A product range is a variation of a product category that a brand may offer for people with different needs and requirements. The products are closely related and have similar characteristics. They are different from each other and usually complementary.
For example, if you sell makeup, the different products of the category would include a foundation, concealer, make-up brushes, blush, highlighters, etc.
Difference Between Product Range and Product Line
Even though product range and product line are used interchangeably, they have different meanings. The terms are closely related, but product line means variations of one specific product, but a product range is more comprehensive and can include complementary products.
Usually, a product line is a subset of the product range. Considering the previous example, a product range of makeup may include a product line of lipsticks for different skin tones.
Advantages of Expanding Product Range
Target a Wider Demographic
Expanding your product range can help you target a broader demographic that might not have been using your products earlier. For example, if you only created products for people with a bright skin tone, increasing your product range to include makeup products for a wheatish to dark skin tone can help you target a broader demographic. Or including makeup products to target people with skin allergies can help you expand your product range and have a wider audience and your target.
Increase Loyalty
Once you increase your product range, you can give your customers a wide range of options. This compels them to stay with your brand, increasing repeat purchases from your website. This will help build a loyal customer base and increase your customer lifetime value.
Improve Average Order Value
The most significant advantage of expanding your product range is the increase in your Average Order Value. After expanding your product range, you can expect customers to buy more products at a time that suits their needs. You can recommend complementary products to your customers and create bundles that push them to purchase more products from your store.
Disadvantages of Expanding Product Range
Complexity in Order Fulfillment
The first disadvantage of expanding a product range is its complexity for order fulfillment. Since there are more SKUs to manage after product range expansion, it will add to storage costs, increase picking errors, and impact the order accuracy. However, you can minimize these issues by utilizing SKU tracking systems and barcode scanning to reduce picking errors and improve order accuracy.
Unequal Sales
Once you expand your product range, you might also face the setback of unequal sales as all the SKUs might not perform adequately. A few SKUs might pick up faster than the others and impact your flagship products that previously made a lot of sales. You need to prioritize which SKUs sell the best and promote them accordingly.
Increased Cost of Development
Also, a product expansion means an increased cost of development. If you produce new SKUs in-house, it will mean an increase in the price of raw materials and production resources like designing, labor, etc. if you source the products from a third-party seller, it will mean additional costs in acquiring the products and shipping them to your fulfillment center or warehouse.
Simplify Fulfillment of Your Product Range With Shiprocket Fulfillment
Shiprocket Fulfillment helps fulfill your products without a load of capital investment and constant intervention in the supply chain. We have fulfillment centers across 35+ locations in the country, and you can send your inventory to us for fulfillment. Our team at these fulfillment centers will take care of all operations like inventory management, warehousing, order processing, shipping, and returns.
If you want to expand your product range at any point in your business, you do not have a minimum or maximum order quantity limit with Shiprocket Fulfillment. You can send in as much inventory as you like and leave the rest of our team.
The most significant advantage is storing these products closer to your customers and shipping them 3X faster. When you expand your product range, you can forecast sales depending on the region and decentralize inventory accordingly. This will help you mitigate the risks and deliver the products on time with utmost accuracy without spending a fortune on shipping.
Final Thoughts
Expanding your product range is required in your e-commerce business as it grows. Make sure that it is a calculated approach that helps you deliver maximum value to your customers.
