The product line is one of the keystone elements of every successful business. Here’s what your product line needs to include, along with some insider pricing strategies you need to know to make sure your products actually sell. 

As business owners, we can often feel like we need to do all the things. Anyone with me? There are a million different ways you can run your business and sometimes we just need someone to tell us what to do.

Well, ya’ll…here it is. I’m going to tell you.

New MuttScrub product line in a shipping box.

Quit trying to do everything and have a thousand things going on everywhere. Instead, focus on your product line!

A product line may sound complicated, or scary, but I promise it’s neither. I’ll walk you through exactly what to have in both of your product lines, and pricing strategies you can utilize to ensure they sell.

Why You Need a Product Line

Or rather, should I say why you need product lines because I recommend you have two of them.

There are several reasons why I strongly believe in product lines. The first, and main, reason is it will make you money. It is impossible to give anything 100% of your effort if you are trying to build everything at the same time. You really can only pick one, maybe two, things to focus on at any stage of your business. What better place to start than your products?

Think of it this way: say you build an amazing facebook page filled with fantastic relationships you have forged with your ideal client. What’s the point? How do you monetize it? By focusing on a product line, you then have somewhere to send all your new fans to.

Additionally, a product line allows you to narrow your focus and study your market. It helps you become a better business person, which will only help your company in the end.

The Signature Product Line

Let’s talk about the first product line. This is what I call a signature line. This line should focus on your niche’s neutrals.

So, what does niche neutrals mean? It’s the common factor for your industry. For example, if your industry is an every day one, focus on neutral colors such as beige, white, and cream. But if your industry is breast cancer awareness, your neutral is pink, not beige. Neutral is the common factor for your industry, it varies between each one.

Your signature product line should have ten products in each line. Five of the ten products are the neutrals — your happy mediums.

Three of the ten should be trending items. Trending could be a color, a theme, or a design model. There’s a reason they are trending ya’ll — people want to buy them. Don’t go making things up, look at what is actually trending, and what’s selling and moving—then make it.

Two of your ten is your eye candy. These need to be your show-stoppers. Have fun with these. Be bold! If you go viral for anything, these will be the showstopper. People may never buy them, but these are the two products in your line that bring people to your store.

For a final product, make something blue. People just like to buy blue. No idea why, but it works!

In recap, your signature product line will have ten total products:

Rules for a Signature Product Line

So that’s one line. There are a few rules for this product line that you will need to follow.

First of all, these items need to be easy to repeat items, that are made in bulk. They have to be easy to duplicate—you’ll be making a lot of them.

These items will be sold all year long. Therefore, make sure it is easy to repeat, and you keep going all year.

The Seasonal Product Line

Your second product line is your seasonal product line.

Think of Hallmark. When they come out with their Christmas collections, everyone rushes to buy it. Why? Because they can only get it then—if they hesitate, it’s gone forever.

The seasonal product line follows the one above. It’s the common popular colors, etc but all related to those seasonal items.

Seasonal Product Line Rule

The rule for this product line is pretty basic. This item must be seasonal. That means, once the season is over, it goes away forever. That’s it. Scarcity creates demand—if people know it is a limited time purchase, and they have to decide quickly whether they want it or not, you are much more likely to make sales. Remember, be like Hallmark.

Product Pricing Strategies

Now that you know what items will be in your product line, let’s talk about pricing your product. Here’s how to price a product.

You need to have a showstopper in your store, but do you know why? Because it helps you sell.

When you are looking at the ten products in your line, you’ll want to vary the price point.

Four products should be more affordably priced, four should be your high-end, and two products should be higher than your high-end.

The Psychology Behind Product Pricing

Here’s a real-life example. Mercedes doesn’t have Hondas on their lot. But, they do offer different price ranges on each model of Mercedes. They are still all luxury cars – you aren’t talking about $20, $100, and $5,000. You are talking about your price range for all the Mercedes of your products. Your low end may still be $120. Your high range may be $150, and your really high end may be $200.

There’s a simple reason why this helps you sell: no one wants to be the person who buys the low-end. People will be like, oh you got the CLK? That’s cool…

On the other side, you also don’t always walk out to the car on the lot that has every bell and whistle. The vast majority of people, 99% of the time, will usually settle for the middle.

If the one in the middle is the one you actually want people to buy, most people will purchase it if you position it as I have outlined. The top range is designed to drive traffic to the middle range, as is the low-end. It’s a happy medium!

People usually judge your work’s price by the overall affordability of your shop. They look at your highest and lowest item and determine the overall value of your store. When they do that, 9 out of 10 times they settle for the price range right in the middle because that’s where they feel is safest. It’ll be a good quality item and a settled price they can agree on.

So your high-end price is actually your mid-range product. By cutting out the mid-range product and instead positioning our high-end one as our middle, you have effectively increased sales.

Does that make sense? Someone holler at me in the comments and let me know!

One Response

  1. Every time I see you on Facebook, I can’t stop from watching and learning. I’ve taken several of your classes, but couldn’t pick one product that I could build a business on, you see I’m an artsy crafty person and make lots of stuff. Well, the pelican has landed, I have 2 products that I have endless supply of goods and with your great wisdom, I figured a way to make many different ways. I’ve tested the market and they sell, so here we go. Thank you for another lesson learned.

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