I Two broad categories of product are consumer products and industrial products.

Consumer products are bought to satisfy personal or household wants: 1. Convenience products - are low-priced items or services that consumers buy frequently(часто) with a minimum of shopping effort. There are 3 subclasses of these products: Staple products ( bread, milk or transport services пок. спонтанно). These products are bought regularly and routinely. These products make you go shopping; Impulse products These products are completely unplanned (you don’t seek). This is why impulse products are located where they will be noticed (magazines, Tic Tac mints). Emergency products They result from urgent and compelling needs. For example, ambulance or wrecker services, an umbrella during the heavy rain. 2. Shopping products - are goods or services that consumers will purchase only after making price
and quality comparisons. They can be: Homogeneous - are considered to be alike (examples - kitchen equipment). In most cases, a person limits the shopping effort to making price comparisons; Heterogeneous - are considered to be different or nonstandardizied. Consumers shop for the best price-quality combination. 3. Specialty products - are goods or services for which the buyer has a strong conviction as to brand, style, or type. For example, Steuben glassware, Rolls-Royce automobiles and so on. Most consumer services that involve a high degree of skill are considered specialty products. 4. Unsought products - are goods or services that potential buyers don't know exist or don't want to think about buying. They can be: Regularly unsought. Caskets(irfnekrb), life insurance, a lawyer's services in preparing a will, and a physician's services in giving a cancer checkup; New unsought - are products that are totally new and unfamiliar to consumers.(oral polio vaccine)

Industrial products can be classified according to the uses to which they are put. Raw materials,component parts, and component materials become part of the product they are used to produce. They are entering products. Installations, accessory equipment, supplies, and business services support products. They don't become part of the product they are used to produce).

II Classification which is based on the profit generated by the products:

1) A money spinner - is a product (or business) generating a lot of profit; 2) A cash cow - is a profitable product (or business) with high market share in a low-growth market. Generally, it means any profitable product (or business) generating a steady flow of sales revenues;(An evening news broadcast when properly managed is a cash cow for its news division);

3) A loss leader - is a product sold unprofitably in order to attract customers who will than be. persuaded to buy profitable ones.

III Taking the quality aspect into account one can divide all products into 3 types. Products that are expensive compared to others of the same type are described as up-market. Mid-priced products are described as mid-market. And finally low-priced products may be referred to as down-market, but this term usually shows disapproval.

Brand - is a name a company gives to its products so that they can be easily recognized. Brand name - is any word, "device" (design, sound, shape, or color), or combination of these used to distinguish a seller's goods or services. A trade name - is a commercial, legal name under which a company does business. A trade mark identifies that a firm has legally registered its brand name or trade name so the firm has its exclusive use, thereby preventing others from using it. Moreover, a well-known trademark can help a company advertise its offerings to customers and develop their brand loyalty.

There are a lot of branding strategies:

1. Manufacturer branding (or multiproduct branding). With manufacturer branding, the producer dictates the brand name using either a multiproduct or multibrand approach. Multiproduct branding is when a company uses one name for all its products. This approach is often referred to as a blanket or family branding strategy. An alternative manufacturer's branding strategy, multibranding, involves giving each product a distinct name. Multibranding is a useful strategy when each brand is intended for a different marketing segment.The advantages of this approach are that each brand is unique to each market segment and there is no risk that a product failure will affect other products in the line.

2. Private branding. A company uses private branding, often called private labeling or reseller branding, when it manufactures products but sells them under the brand name of a wholesaler or retailer.The advantage to the manufacturer is that promotional costs are shifted to the retailer or other company, and the manufacturer can often sell more units through others than by themselves. There is a risk, though, because the manufacturer's sales depend heavily on the efforts of others.

3. Mixed" branding. A compromise between manufacturer and private branding is mixed branding where a firm markets products under its own name and that of a reseller, because the segment attracted to the reseller is different from their own market.

4. Generic branding. So, products that are not branded, those that do not have a brand name, are generic products or generics (for example, dog food, peanut butter, or green beans). Speaking about branding, perhaps, I should mention about the adoption process. Adoption process - is the series of stages a prospective buyer goes through in deciding to buy and make regular use of new product.

Product lines – is a group of clothely related products which usually have the same function and are sold to the same customer groups through the same outlet. Product mix – the set of all product lines and items offered by a company.(Ассортимент выпускаемой продукции - совокупность всех производственных линий и предметов, предлагаемых компанией.)

Line – stretching means lengthening a product line by moving either up-market or down-market. Line – filling is adding further items in that part of a product range which a line already covers.

The processes of product design and product development: First of all, we generate the idea of a new product. In this connection we are searching for consumer needs (and also we can make a market analysis or a technical feasibility study), thinking about all alternatives, and, of course selecting the best idea of a new potential product. Then, we evaluate alternative designs in terms of reliability, maintainability, and so on, and their reducibility. The next our step is final design. It means that we develop and test preliminary designs, and make final specifications. After that, we select a production facility (existing or new). As you can see, the process of selection is the next, but not the final step in our scheme. For this reason, I want to say, that on this phase, we evaluate alternative technologies and methods, and decide whether to develop them or license them from other companies; moreover, we select specific equipment and process flow. The final step of the product design and development process is the capacity and production planning. In other words, on this we try to determine production capacity and production schedule. The standard life cy cle includes: introduction, growth, maturity and decline stages