TL;DR
The decline stage doesn’t have to mean the end of your product — it can be the start of a strategic reinvention. This guide helps you recognize the signs of decline and walks you through four actionable strategies (with real SaaS examples) to prolong, reposition, redesign, or replace your product. If your growth has stalled, this is your playbook for turning things around.
Some products live like trees — they sprout, grow tall, and eventually wither. Kodak is a prime example. Once the undisputed leader in film photography, it failed to adapt when digital cameras emerged. Kodak didn’t decline because its product stopped working — it declined because the world moved on.
But some products are phoenixes. They face the decline stage of the product life cycle and rise again, reimagined for a new era. The product life cycle, as discussed in authoritative sources like Harvard Business Review, helps explain why some products fade while others reinvent themselves. Think Levi’s — a denim brand founded in 1873 that remains relevant today. Or IBM, a tech pioneer that has reinvented itself multiple times over a century. Even the Harry Potter franchise has defied the usual product cycle: fifteen years after its debut, it’s still growing, expanding across games, merchandise, and theme parks.
So what separates brands that fade from those that flourish?
In this article, we’ll break down what the decline stage of the product life cycle really looks like — and how to handle it strategically. We’ll explore:
- A quick recap of all product life cycle stages
- Real SaaS examples of products in decline
- Actionable strategies to revive or replace a declining product
- Tips from Eleken’s experience helping SaaS companies turn things around
Whether you’re seeing early warning signs or already deep in the decline phase, this guide will help you chart the best path forward — with real-world case studies and no-nonsense advice.
What are the product life cycle stages again?
The product life cycle is a series of stages that products undergo, from introduction to growth to maturity phase and eventual demise. The product lifecycle describes the journey a product takes from its initial introduction to its eventual decline. The lifespan is different for each product. It can take a week or a month for one item, like some trendy necklace, and years or even decades for another. Warburtons, for example, have existed since 1876. Developing an effective marketing strategy and conducting thorough market research are essential throughout the product's life to maximize success and adapt to changing market conditions. Managing each phase of a product's life is crucial for long-term viability.
There are four main product life cycle stages.
What are the stages of the product life cycle?
The product life cycle is a series of stages that products undergo, from introduction to growth to maturity phase and eventual demise. The product lifecycle describes the journey a product takes from its initial introduction to its eventual decline. The lifespan is different for each product. It can take a week or a month for one item, like some trendy necklace, and years or even decades for another. Warburtons, for example, have existed since 1876. Developing an effective marketing strategy and conducting thorough market research are essential throughout the product's life to maximize success and adapt to changing market conditions. Managing each phase of a product's life is crucial for long-term viability.
There are four main product life cycle stages.
1. Introduction Stage
This is when the product launches, also known as the introduction phase. A successful product launch is critical, and companies must generate buzz through content marketing and marketing campaigns to reach their target audience. The introduction phase requires a substantial investment, including high production costs and overall marketing and production costs, as companies work to build awareness and establish a foothold in the market. The marketing team plays a key role in driving customer engagement, even though sales tend to be low initially. Product testing is essential before and during the introduction phase to ensure the product is ready for the market. Competition is often low, giving early movers a chance to establish market presence.
2. Growth Stage
During the growth stage—also known as the growth phase or market growth stage—sales begin to climb rapidly as more people become aware of the product.
Market growth during this stage drives market expansion, making it essential for businesses to optimize existing distribution channels and explore new distribution channels to reach a wider audience.
Gathering customer feedback and conducting market research are crucial for refining the product and effectively targeting different market segments.
Product teams play a key role in managing the growth of an existing product, ensuring strategic decisions are made to sustain momentum and outpace competitors.
Demand increases, competitors enter the market, and businesses often add new features or adjust pricing to stay ahead.
3. Maturity Stage
The product reaches its peak. Growth slows down, and the market becomes saturated. At this stage, a mature product requires a strong brand identity to maintain market share and stand out from competitors. Managing manufacturing costs and optimizing production processes become crucial for sustaining profitability and efficiency. Companies also focus on extending the life of existing products in a saturated market by implementing strategies such as continuous improvement, customer feedback integration, and product iteration. Intense competition pushes companies to differentiate through incremental improvements, loyalty programs, or new distribution strategies.
4. Decline Stage
Eventually, the product enters the final stage of its life cycle, where market decline and sales fall become prominent as the product loses relevance. This decline is often driven by new technological advancements and changing consumer preferences, both of which can negatively impact the product's performance. During this phase, effective product life cycle management, along with a well-planned product life cycle strategy and adaptive product life cycle strategies, are crucial for navigating the challenges. Companies may intensify their marketing efforts to sustain relevance, target loyal customers, or explore diversification as sales and profits decrease. At this point, companies must decide: phase out the product, reposition it, or invest in a redesign or pivot.
Not all products follow this path at the same pace. A trendy app might cycle through all four stages in a single year, while legacy products like Warburtons bread (founded in 1876) can endure for decades.
Coming up next: what the decline stage really looks like — and how to tell if you’re in it.
What is the decline stage of the product cycle?
The decline stage is the final phase in a product’s journey. It follows introduction, growth, and maturity, and a consistent drop in sales, market share, and profitability defines it. An existing product reaches the decline stage as part of its product's life cycle, often after a period of maturity. A significant decrease in sales volume is a key indicator that the product has entered this stage.
Products typically enter this phase due to one or more of the following:
- Technological advancements that make the product obsolete
- Shifting customer needs or new user expectations
- Better alternatives offered by competitors
- Market saturation with no room left to grow
At this point, the product becomes less cost-effective to support. However, decline doesn’t always mean failure — with the right strategy, companies can reinvent or reposition the product to spark new demand.
How to Recognize If Your Product Is in Decline
Before deciding how to respond to the decline stage, it’s important to determine whether your product is actually in it. The signs aren’t always dramatic, and many businesses miss early warning signals simply because they’re too focused on short-term goals. A noticeable decline in customer interest can serve as an early warning sign that your product may be entering the decline stage.
If you’ve noticed a sense of stagnation or shrinking impact, ask yourself the following:
- Are you monitoring your product's performance across different market segments to identify where declines are most pronounced?
Key Indicators That a Product May Be Entering the Decline Stage
1. Sales or active users are declining over time
You’re seeing a consistent downward trend over the past 6 to 12 months, even after running campaigns or feature updates intended to drive growth.
2. Customer retention is falling
More users are churning, and it’s getting harder to bring in new ones to make up for the losses.
3. Conversion rates are weaker than before
Even with the same or higher traffic levels, fewer people are converting. Your funnel may no longer perform at the same efficiency.
4. The product is no longer competitive
Your competitors have released features or integrations that surpass your value proposition.
5. User engagement has dropped across key features
Analytics show lower interaction rates and reduced time spent in the product.
6. Feedback volume has decreased — or grown more negative
There’s a noticeable shift from helpful user suggestions to frustrated complaints, or silence altogether.
7. The tech stack is holding you back
Aging infrastructure makes it harder to iterate or keep up with market trends.
8. Internal direction feels uncertain
Your roadmap feels reactive rather than strategic. Teams disagree on priorities or feel blocked by uncertainty.
If several of these resonate with your current product situation, it’s time to move into strategy mode. The decline stage isn’t necessarily a dead end—but it is a turning point. What you do next can either extend your product’s relevance or open the door to something new.
Let’s explore real-world examples of products in decline — and what went wrong.
Examples of product decline in SaaS
In the SaaS world, even once-dominant platforms can experience this downturn. Let's take a look at some well-known examples of SaaS products that have entered the decline stage and why they struggled to maintain their relevance.
Skype
Once a leading communication tool for video calls and messaging, Skype has lost significant market share to competitors like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. Issues with its user interface, lack of innovation, and the rise of newer, more user-friendly platforms have contributed to its decline.
Dropbox (for personal use)
Dropbox was once a popular cloud storage solution, but with Google Drive, iCloud, and OneDrive becoming more integrated with other services and offering larger free storage spaces, Dropbox's appeal for personal users has waned.
InVision
InVision was once a dominant tool for design prototyping and collaboration. However, with the rise of Figma, a more collaborative, browser-based tool with real-time editing, InVision struggled to keep up. Figma offers superior features like seamless collaboration between designers and developers, integrated design and prototyping in one tool, and cloud-based accessibility, which made it more appealing for design teams.
Evernote
Evernote was once a leading note-taking app, but has lost ground to tools like Notion, Microsoft OneNote, and Google Keep. Many users felt Evernote became too complex and expensive compared to its competitors.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite, a popular social media management tool, has seen a decline in market share as other platforms like Buffer and Sprout Social offer more advanced features or better pricing models. Additionally, the rise of native tools like Facebook Business Suite has reduced the need for third-party platforms.
As we can see in the table below, the basic strategy for managing the product in a decline stage is to maintain it at minimum cost and eliminate the advertising and sales promotions. Sounds not quite a path to success, right?
Let's check out some more promising product life cycle decline stage strategies.
Strategies to Handle the Decline Stage
The decline stage doesn’t have to be the end of your product’s journey. While sales and user interest are decreasing, this phase can open the door to reinvention — if you choose the right strategy. Below are four proven approaches SaaS companies can take to manage decline, complete with real examples and actionable insights.
Here are several scenarios to prolong the life of your product:
1. Prolong the product’s life with consistent updates and engagement
The first and often most natural strategy is to extend the product’s lifecycle by continuing to evolve it. This approach involves pushing out new updates, feature releases, content, and campaigns that keep your user base engaged and the brand relevant.
The Harry Potter franchise is an iconic example of this approach. Instead of letting each product stand alone, the brand strategically timed new releases — books, movies, games, merchandise — to keep fans consistently engaged. In fact, between 1997 and 2003, each time one book was in growth or early maturity, the next installment launched, boosting the popularity of earlier parts and extending the overall lifecycle of the franchise. The result was a brand presence that lasted far beyond what a single release could have achieved.
But let’s be realistic — not every company has the resources of Warner Bros. For startups and growing SaaS teams, the challenge is often lack of bandwidth. In our experience at Eleken, many teams want to sustain momentum through continuous updates but simply don’t have enough hands on deck. That’s where our team extension services come in. We help companies like yours ship product updates faster without overstretching internal teams.
Prolonging your product’s life is a proactive strategy — it only works if you act before the decline hits. Once users start churning en masse, reviving interest becomes much harder.
2. Change direction: reposition the product for a new market or audience
When your current audience stops buying, it doesn’t always mean your product is dead — it may just be in the wrong place. This strategy is about reimagining where and how your product fits into the market.
For example, some companies manage decline by:
- Repackaging their product for a different market segment
- Introducing lower-cost tiers to attract price-sensitive users
- Entering adjacent markets where there’s less competition
- Positioning for different use cases than originally intended
Take TextMagic, one of our clients at Eleken. Originally a leader in SMS marketing, the product was facing inevitable decline as messaging apps like WhatsApp and Viber took over. Rather than ride out the downward slope, the team chose to pivot.
We helped them redesign and expand their product by adding live chat and email marketing features. This shift turned TextMagic from a single-channel tool into a broader, more versatile platform — reigniting interest and drawing in a fresh audience.
The takeaway: sometimes the decline isn’t about the product’s quality — it’s about its context. A strategic shift can breathe new life into something that feels like it’s fading.
3. Redesign the product to reduce friction and improve usability
In many cases, what drags a product into decline isn’t market fit — it’s frustrating UX. Clunky interfaces, steep learning curves, and outdated design choices can turn off users, especially when new competitors offer sleeker alternatives.
This is where a well-timed redesign can reverse the downward trend.
Ricochet360 is a prime example. It’s a robust CRM and cloud phone system, but its design was overwhelming. The setup process took over a month, requiring admins to be trained and then train entire call center teams. For customers looking for a plug-and-play experience, that kind of friction was a dealbreaker.
When Ricochet360 approached us at Eleken, we worked to simplify and streamline the platform. The goal wasn’t to change its core features but to make it more intuitive and accessible. After the redesign, users could get started faster, with less frustration — and more satisfaction.
So if your metrics show user drop-off, long onboarding, or frequent support tickets, it’s worth asking: is your product suffering from design debt?
A thoughtful redesign can often unlock the growth your product was capable of all along.
If you feel like your app needs a refresh to unleash its full potential, check out Eleken's redesign services.
4. Build a New Value Proposition (When It’s Time to Let Go)
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, the product no longer delivers enough value to justify continued investment. Maybe the tech stack is outdated. Maybe the market has moved on. Maybe the business model just doesn’t scale anymore.
In these cases, the smartest move might be to retire the product — and start building something new with the lessons and resources you’ve gained.
We’ve seen this scenario many times. A team recognizes that their product is nearing the end of its lifecycle, so they use that as a springboard to identify a new opportunity. Rather than clinging to what’s no longer working, they reallocate energy into a leaner, more focused product.
This is where creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) comes in. A well-designed MVP lets you test new ideas with minimal cost and maximum learning. And the faster you validate a new direction, the sooner you can begin a new lifecycle.
At Eleken, we’ve helped dozens of SaaS teams design MVPs that solve real problems, fast. Whether it’s a pivot from an old product or a brand-new idea, we help you find clarity in the chaos.
Each of these strategies highlights a simple truth: decline doesn’t have to be the end of the story. With the right mix of redesign, repositioning, and innovation, many products can prolong their relevance and profitability. But no strategy works in isolation — it depends on timing, execution, and understanding your users.
That brings us to our final takeaway: what all of this means for your product today.
What do you do at the decline stage of a product?
Navigating the decline stage isn’t about giving up — it’s about leaning into change. While this phase marks the end of a product’s growth curve, it can also spark some of the most strategic, creative, and impactful decisions your company will make.
Brands like Levi’s and Harry Potter show that decline doesn’t always lead to extinction. With the right approach, declining products can be reinvented, repackaged, or repositioned to regain relevance and open new revenue streams.
Whether your next move is to prolong the product’s life, pivot to a new segment, redesign the UX, or build an entirely new value proposition, what matters most is acting with intent. Backed by data and user insights, these strategies can transform stagnation into growth.
At Eleken, we specialize in helping SaaS businesses make these transitions. Our team has redesigned aging platforms, helped teams reposition their offerings, and supported new MVP launches — all tailored to product life cycle realities.
If your product is approaching a turning point, we’re ready to help you rethink, redesign, and relaunch with confidence. Tell us a few words about your challenge — and we'll come back to you with hand-picked UI/UX ideas.
