Product Lining

Product lining is the marketing strategy of offering several related products for sale as individual units. Unlike product bundling, where several products are combined into one group, which is then offered for sale as a unit, product lining involves offering the products for sale separately. Category is the broad spectrum a company has to offer. For example Tata has various categories like FMCG products, Motors etc. Sub-category is the categories within the categories. For example, Passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, transport vehicles etc. are the subcategories of Tata Motors. A line can comprise related products of various sizes, types, colors, qualities, or prices. Line depth refers to the number of subcategories a category has. Line consistency refers to how closely related the products that make up the line are. Line vulnerability refers to the percentage of sales or profits that are derived from only a few products in the line.

The number of different categories of a company is referred to as width of product mix. The total number of products sold in all lines is referred to as length of product mix. If a line of products is sold with the same brand name, this is referred to as family branding. When you add a new product to a line, it is referred to as a line extension. When you have a single saleable item distinguishable by size, appearance, prize or some other attribute in your product line, it is called SKU-Stock Keeping Unit.