Obsolete products and services

A product or service is obsolete when it is no longer wanted, used or needed, so demand for it has fallen. Being obsolete is not the same as being old or broken: something can still work perfectly well, yet almost nobody wants to buy it any more.

Why demand disappears

• New technology: a new device or system does the same job more quickly, cheaply or conveniently, so customers switch. Printed road atlases, encyclopaedias and phone books barely sell now that a phone can give directions and answers in seconds.
• Changed consumer wants: habits, tastes and priorities move on, and a product that no longer matches what customers care about stops selling.

Once customers have drifted away it is hard to win them back, because they have already got used to the alternative. Falling demand is the signal that a product's time is up.

The opportunity inside obsolescence

Falling demand is not just bad news. The need the old product met has not gone away, and the products that replaced it may not suit every customer. That is the opening for a new business idea: offer a replacement for the old product, or a better alternative that solves the same problem in a new way.

For example, a small firm that printed flick-through paper catalogues for holiday companies saw orders collapse as customers browsed destinations on their phones. Instead of trying to sell more printed catalogues, the owner set up a service that builds short photo-and-video catalogues which travel agents send to customers by message. The printed catalogue was obsolete, but the need to show customers what a trip looks like was not, and the new service captured it.