UTTAR BANGA KRISHI VISHWAVIDYALAYA

Course Name:

Course No:

Submitted by,

Ainul Bari Malitha

Regn No: A-2020-010-M

M.Sc 1st year, 2nd semester

 Adopter Categories for New Products/Technology

Introduction: Consumers are divided into 5 adopter categories based on their

behavioral patterns and values. The 5 adopter categories, in order of their
speed of uptake, are:

A. Innovator

B. Early Adopters

C. Early Majority

D. Late Majority

E. Laggard

When a new product first emerges in the market, it must be accepted by the
different adopters that make up the market.
Understanding Early Adopters and Customer Adoption
Patterns:
Customer adoption patterns are important to understanding
how to market new product for adoption. Without a clear
understanding of what each type of adopter values it can be
difficult, if not impossible to target them through marketing.

In his book, Diffusion of Innovations (1962), Everett M Rogers

the communication scholar and sociologist, describes 5 types of
adopter for products and provides insight into each of those
types.

The 5 Types of Adopter for New Products and Innovations:

Rogers presents a social system for adopters of recent
innovation; the adoption of innovation varies throughout the
course of the product-life cycle as shown in the diagram above.

1. Innovators
2. Early Adopters
3. Early Majority
4. Late Majority
5. Laggards

Innovators:
Innovators are the first customers to try a new product. They
are, by nature, risk takers and are excited by the possibilities of
new ideas and new ways of doing things. Products tend to be
more expensive at their point of release (though some products
do defy this trend) and as such innovators are generally
wealthier than other types of adopters (though in some cases
they may adopt products in a very narrow field and devote
much of their financial resources to this adoption).

Innovators will often have some connection to the scientific

discipline in which a new product is generated from and will
tend to socialize with other innovators in their chosen product
categories.

Early Adopters:
Early adopters are the second phase of product purchasers
following innovators. These tend to be the most influential
people within any market space and they will often have a
degree of “thought leadership” for other potential adopters.
They may be very active in social media and often create
reviews and other materials around new products that they
strongly like or dislike.

Early adopters will normally have a reasonably high social

status (which in turn enables thought leadership), reasonable
access to finances (beyond those of later adopters), high levels
of education and a reasonable approach to risk. However, they
do not take as many risks as innovators and tend to make more
reasoned decisions as to whether or not to become involved in
a particular product. They will try to obtain more information
than an innovator in this decision making process.

Early Majority:
As a product begins to have mass market appeal, the next class
of adopter to arrive is the early majority. This class of adopter is
reasonably risk averse and wants to be sure that their, often
more limited, resources are spent wisely on products. They are
however, generally, people with better than average social
status and while not thought leaders in their own right – they
will often be in contact with thought leaders and use the
opinions of these thought leaders when making their adoption
decisions.
Late Majority:
The late majority is rather more skeptical about product
adoption than the first three classes of adopters. They tend to
put their resources towards tried and tested solutions only and
are risk-averse. As you might expect, in general terms, this
category of adopter has less money, lower social status, and
less interaction with thought leaders and innovators than the
other groups of adopters. The late majority rarely offer any
form of thought leadership in a field.

Laggards:
Laggards are last to arrive at the adoption party and their
arrival is typically a sign that a product is entering decline.
Laggards value traditional methods of doing things and highly
averse to change and risk. Typically laggards will have low
socio-economic status and rarely seek opinions outside of their
own limited social set. However, it is worth noting that in many
cases laggards are older people who are less familiar with
technology than younger generations and in these cases they
may still have a mid-level of socio-economic status.