Laggards - Definition & Importance

Published in Marketing and Strategy Terms by MBA Skool Team

What is Laggards?

Laggards are those customers or adopters of products who take the product in the end. Laggards are price sensitive and skeptical about trying a new product. Laggards adopt products when the prices are discounted and they have a comprehensive feedback from early adopter customers.


Laggards are the last set of customers as per the adopter categories in the diffusion of innovation theory. These customers adopt products in the end after innovators, early adopters, early majority and late majority have already adopted the products.


Importance of Laggards

Laggards are the group of consumers who do not like change & are not willing to try new & different things. These types of people are very concerned about cost & reliability of the particular product. They represent about 16% of the population of the consumers. These customers are important for businesses as companies then understand that their product is on a decline. However, price discounts also helps companies to extract some revenue from laggards even from a declining product or service.

Characteristics of Laggards

There are certain characteristics of laggards which are important from marketing point of view.

1. These are the people who don’t’ have large amount of money, have low level of education.

2. Laggards have low status in society & lack mobility.

3. Their financial condition doesn’t allow them to spend on new & innovative products & hence they wait until the price of the product is down & they can afford it.

4. Laggards are not usually interested in very high end product but a product with credibility & a one which is simple to use.

Hence, this concludes the definition of Laggards along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

Browse the definition and meaning of more similar terms. The Management Dictionary covers over 1800 business concepts from 5 categories.

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