Abstract: | For many durable consumer products, the conditions needed for sustained growth in sales seem to have disappeared. Some of these products have reached saturation levels of ownership; others seem to have plateaued at lower levels of ownership. The authors of this article, Professors Clark, Freeman, and Hanssens, have taken a multidisciplinary approach to the analysis of one portion of the consumer durables market—household appliances—to detect the underlying components of demand. They speculate on how these demand components will fare in the coming years and draw implications for the way these markets can be stimulated. |