Making a product costs a lot of money and the long and costly process of designing, manufacturing and advertising should be backed up by the profits it makes. This means that whenever a company fails to sell a product they lose a lot of time and money.

Since there are many things that can go wrong we made a list of why some products fail to sell.

Poor product quality. When a company cuts corners to cheapen the price of a product they can end up with a not so good manufacturing process. This could result in a product that doesn’t meet the expectations of their customers, leading buyers to refrain from purchasing the same product or even another one from the same brand.

Launching a product at the wrong time. Even a product that has both, good quality and a nice price tag can fail it is not launched at the correct time. For example, no one would buy a Christmas-themed sweater launched in a hot summer.

Not being able to compete. A company that launches a product in a market where some big-name company has already established itself will have a big fight ahead, one that can lead to some incredible losses.

Just take a look at the infamous Zune, a gadget launched by Microsoft designed to fight in a marked where the iPod was king, but the Zune failed to meet their users’ expectations and flopped. HP’s Touchpad suffered a similar failure, even when it had good technical specifications it never gained traction due to the astounding popularity that the iPad had.

Unsuccessful marketing campaign. A good advertising campaign can convince anyone of buying anything. Just take a look at Gary Dahl, an advertising executive that started the Pet Rock craze, he made himself a millionaire by selling simple rocks as pets.

On the other hand, some companies have failed to sell a product just because they didn’t have a good promotional strategy, like the Sega’s Dreamcast launched in 1999. The Dreamcast was way ahead of its time, it had internet capabilities and a second screen on their controllers, but they couldn’t compete with the marketing campaign of Sony’s unreleased PS2.

Lack of a distribution strategy. If a product can’t reach the hands of their customers quick enough then it is doomed to fail. A proper distribution plan aimed to supply the demand of a product will ensure that it is bought whenever a customer feels like it. For example, the infamous startup Coolest Cooler promised to deliver their product to everyone that backed their business, but the amount of people that supported their startup was so high that their manufacturer couldn’t supply their backers on the promised time, resulting in a PR disaster.

As you can see even the most important parts of making a product can end overlooked, resulting in things like a bad design, a cheap build or a bad marketing campaign. Being able to recognize what can go wrong in a product will be key to any business that is in the process of producing new goods to sell.