Dynamic Effects of the Order of Entry on Market Share, Trial Penetration, and Repeat Purchases for Frequently Purchased Consumer Goods

A time series cross-sectional analysis of 18 successful later entrants in 8 categories of consumer packaged goods over the period from October 1983 to January 1988 confirms previous empirical findings that, after correcting for differences in marketing effort, later entrants suffer a long-term market share disadvantage. New evidence of the penalties associated with later entry are found in statistical estimation of models of cumulative trial, first repeat, and subsequent repeat purchasing. Significantly lower asymptotic levels are found in both trial and repeat behavior. However based on this data, the rate of approach of later entrants to their lower asymptotic performance measures is either equal to or faster than early entrants and provides evidence of a compensating partial effect accrued by later entrants.