Also referred to as corporate cannibalism, market cannibalization occurs when a new product intrudes on the existing market for an older product. A supermarket chain, for example, might open a new store near one of its older stores, knowing that they will inevitably cannibalize each other’s sales.

Corporate cannibalism is when a product sees a decrease in sales volume or market share due to the release of some new product that has been introduced by the same company. The new product ends up “eating” demand for the current product, therefore reducing overall sales.

Another example of cannibalization occurs when a retailer discounts a particular product. The tendency of consumers is to buy the discounted product rather than competing products with higher prices. When the promotion event is over and prices return to normal, however, the effect will tend to disappear.

How to Prevent Market Cannibalization?

1. Identify the specific markets for each of the products. In such a way, it’s easy to determine what gap the existing product fills and the specific consumers that the item serves.
2. Assess the possible market demand for the proposed new product.

Product cannibalization – also known as corporate cannibalism or market cannibalization – happens when a company’s new product displaces an existing one. In other words, it reduces purchases of an older product and eats away at your own sales.

Specifically, eating the brain of another human being can cause kuru — a brain disease that’s similar to mad cow disease. Kuru occurs because our brains contain prions that transmit the disease. Symptoms begin with trembling and end in death.

Market cannibalization, market cannibalism, or corporate cannibalism is the practice of slashing the price of a product or introducing a new product into a market of established product categories. In this case, both products belong to the same category of products.

In this page you can discover 5 synonyms, antonyms, idiomatic expressions, and related words for cannibalize, like: salvage, strip for repair, disassemble, dismantle and cannibalise.

Many large companies, such as national chains, cannibalize individual store sales by placing multiple locations in the same market. By placing numerous storefronts in a market, a company may drive out competitors but will add stress to their stores, which must compete against one another.

Prioritize which markets are best-suited for the introduction of new products that are sufficiently differentiated from your existing products so they decrease the possibility of cannibalization. Analyzing the markets in this way allows lets you determine relative pros and cons of launching a new product line.

Etymology. The word “cannibalism” is derived from Caníbales, the Spanish name for the Caribs, a West Indies tribe that may have practiced cannibalism, from Spanish canibal or caribal, “a savage”. The term anthropophagy, meaning “eating humans”, is also used for human cannibalism.

Market cannibalization, market cannibalism, or corporate cannibalism is the practice of slashing the price of a product or introducing a new product into a market of established product categories.