I don’t think I’ve ever felt more overwhelmed in my life than the last time I went to buy toothpaste. Do I want whitening? But don’t I also want cavity protection? Is the cost of getting “Total” worth my while? And this is before I even think about the endless brands I have to choose from.

But despite all the crazy amounts of flavors and benefits each of these toothpastes offer, dentists actually don’t really see any significant differences between the brands:

Many dentists think differences between brands aren’t very meaningful. “Just make sure it has fluoride and has the American Dental Association seal,” says Ada Cooper, a New York dentist and consumer adviser for the ADA, which evaluates toothpaste claims.

Companies  do this all the time, it’s called “product line extension”, where a company adds new “types” to an existing product to provide variety. This Harvard Business Review article from the 1994 addition summarizes the usefulness of this tactic quite well:

The authors see several reasons why companies rely on line extensions as part of their marketing strategies: managers perceive extensions as a low-cost, low-risk way to meet the needs of various customer segments; line extensions can satisfy consumers’ desires by providing a wide variety of goods under a single brand; and managers often use extensions as a short-term competitive weapon to increase a brand’s control over limited shelf space.

That makes a lot of sense. You want cereal and you see a wall of Kellogg’s varieties, and you’re probably going to buy Cocoa Puffs (well, maybe that part is just me). But line extension has been a staple tactic of large corporations since retail selling was a thing, and has been useful in letting companies develop significant brand awareness and loyalty, as well as target every possible segment of a population.

But the driving point of the Harvard Business article points to the perils of oversegmentation, where the brand becomes diluted and resources are wasted wantonly. In fact, the entire face of consumer products has changed since 1994, thanks to the internet and a significant shift in buyer psychology.

For one, shelf space is becoming a less important factor driving sales. As more people shop online, shelf space advantage is losing its edge. Instead, customer and peer reviews are becoming a much more utilized tool in evaluating product choices, adding another dimension to choice psychology. Plus, ads and marketing are now fine- tuned and targeted thanks to social media and online footprints, meaning that products for specific customer segments have much easier/less expensive channels of finding those customers.

Utilizing these trends that ecommerce introduces, could new consumer products extend their offerings in different ways? What if instead of growing through product line extension, new products instead focused on their brand? And what if instead of inundating customers with choices, product extensions were based on clear different use cases/price points?

This is a possibility I see for the future of consumer products: focused product lines and ecosystems built around them. The best example of this would be Sonos, a high quality consumer electronics maker that focuses on speakers. A trip to the product page of Sonos shows this:

Sonos bread and butter, their speaker collection, features only three speakers. The speaker types are also clearly tiered; a person should be able to pretty easily choose between a Play:1 and a Play:5 based on their disposable income and place for the stereo. This product offering is designed to be simple and least confusing to the consumer. In a “line extension” strategy, Sonos should start making more speakers, using more adjectives and coming in different shapes, within this same price range.

However, Sonos instead is using a type of “brand extension strategy”, and developing a product ecosystem that surrounds the original Sonos speaker line. Examples include a standalone sub-woofer, a home theater system, speaker attachments, and a music streaming hub (all of which have 1 or 2 products in those verticals, keeping with the simplicity).

This strategy no longer has to “take up shelf space” or target every possible customer segment, and instead utilizes Sonos reputation of building high quality speakers to move into other verticals that complement the original product. Some other companies that do this include:

Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club – Provide a 2-3 different razor types tiered by price, and develops an ecosystem of shaving additions such as gels, oils, etc.

Brilliant Bicycles – Provides two different bicycles, tiered by price and use case (everyday vs. once in a while riding) and a biking necessity ecosystem (helmet, guards, locks, etc.)

Lytro – Offers two types of cameras, a high end professional camera or a much cheaper camera for average consumers. Also offers an ecosystem of support products for the cameras (screen protectors, carrying cases, etc.)

A few companies which could expand using this framework include:

Casper: Currently sells a single mattress type for $850, tiered by bed size. One expansion possibility is to sell a $450 and $650 mattress, and an accompanying “sleep ecosystem” to build around it (ie. pillows, sleeping masks, etc.)

Eero: Sells a wifi router, could also use their brand to branch into smart home hubs, mobile hotspots, etc.

Lola: High quality tampons classified into light, regular, and super based on needs. Expansion could be moving into other feminine hygiene products.

The focused product line framework provides a few advantages:

• It becomes easier to bundle packages for consumers to buy at once.
• The more integrated into the ecosystems consumers become, the higher the opportunity cost for them to switch and the better the experience with products working in tandem with each other (ie. Sonos speakers easily connecting to the home theater).
• Narrowing the product lines makes the warehousing and delivery process much more efficient (easily trackable SKUs, less packaging variability, etc.).
• Can produce scalability quicker by focusing on an individual product rather than dividing resources among several products.
• Customers that own the focus product are more likely to go directly to the site to buy accessories in the ecosystem, therefore bypassing 3rd party ecommerce marketplaces (especially as the brand becomes more recognizable)

This framework makes it easier for consumer products to build their brand and scale to a certain point, but the question that arises is how large can these companies truly be? When scaled to a multi-billion dollar business, do these companies encompass a massive spoke-and-wheel ecosystem with many different products across tons of different countries? Or do they eventually have to do some “product line extensions” to build out their revenue streams?

Tesla is probably the closest example of a large public company that employs this strategy. The company only offers two models of cars which have entirely different use cases (Sedan vs. SUV), as well as an ecosystem surrounding these products (apparel, car parts, etc.). Tesla’s brand has centered around a single product, but the brand of high quality engineering has allowed it to develop tangentially related single products as well, like Powerwall. In addition, Tesla allows for a level of customizability within each car model itself (generally giving 2-3 tiered options for each one of the upgrades), which allows it to avoid churning out tons of new models each with different features. The company’s future success and growth plans are unknown, but as it stands they’ve currently demonstrated a way to scale a business through this framework. Whether or not the focused product ecosystem is possible to maintain for other businesses dealing with smaller products has yet to be seen.

But the era of brick and mortar is far from over, and these new consumer products still account for less than 1% of total retail product sales. However as in-person purchases continue to slow and more business transact online, we can expect more products to adopt this strategy. Perhaps one day, I can see a future where I’m no longer intimidated when I walk down the toothpaste aisle. For now, I’m hiding behind my computer, basking in my limited options as I look for a new mattress on the Casper website.