Here’s a fun student entrepreneur activity for the business education classroom where students identify why products were duds.
Dollar Tree shelves are lined with $1.25 generics, smaller-sized branded products, all manner of knock-offs, and – if you look closely enough – some very interesting discontinued merchandise.
I see new products and full-sized branded products all the time when I’m shopping there.
And while some of them are just products that are at risk of expiring in the next several months, others?
Well, I suspect they were “duds” – new products that came out in retail stores that didn’t sell, for one reason or another.
That’s when I thought it would be fun to create a business activity based on this idea.
Discontinued Products Business Class Activity
You’ll want to scour Dollar Tree’s aisles for any products you suspect were duds.
These are generally products that:
- Are full-sized and branded
- Are “interesting” flavors or takes on traditionally well-performing products
- Are products you’ve never seen before at a traditional retailer
You might not get this 100% right, but these are some good guidelines to follow.
Just look at a few that I found over the last several months:
Once you have your set of duds, choose one of the activities below and set up stations around your classroom to have students work through it.
Activity #1: Why is This Product Discontinued?
There are any number of reasons why a product might be deemed a dud and discontinued, finding itself on shelves at Dollar Tree or other discount retailers.
Set out your dud products, and ask students to write down ideas for why they think the product failed.
Ask them to put on their “consumer hat”, and think like someone spending their own money.
Do they think the product would solve a problem they have? Do they want to pay to solve that problem, or is the problem not bad enough that they want to part with their hard-earned money?
Is the product unattractive in some way, or is it a serious turn-off to consumers?
Finally, what do they think could be changed about the product to increase its saleability?
You can either provide a list of ideas for what went wrong or have your students first come up with their own thoughts and discuss them with others (then provide the list afterward).
- Costs more than consumers want to pay
- Solves a problem consumers don’t want to pay to fix
- Has too much competition
- Other established brands dominate the category
- Not shelved in a good spot for consumers to see
- Product doesn’t work well/quality issues
- Is fine, but didn’t sell enough
- Consumers don’t try it
- Too expensive
- Supply chain problems
- Releasing a product too early (people don’t get it, or no mass adoption of the new product)
- Is marketed to the wrong consumer
Activity #2: Spot the Dud Game
Another fun game you can set up at various stations is to purchase the “dud” product, and then two other products in that same category. Then, have students guess which one is the dud product and which ones are not.
For example, using the gummies above, I could purchase the weird gummy products, then two other semi-weird gummy products at a traditional retailer.
Students can discuss/debate why they think one product is the dud, and which two they believe sell well.
That's it – a simple, fun business education classroom activity that can open your student's eyes about what makes a successful product by thinking about why particular products failed. Let me know how it goes!
Amanda L. Grossman
Latest posts by Amanda L. Grossman (see all)
- 5 Easter Candy Games for Kids (Supplies from Dollar Tree) - January 14, 2025
- 7 Easter Minute to Win It Games for Kids (Supplies from Dollar Tree) - January 14, 2025
- 7 St. Patrick’s Day Minute to Win It Games (Supplies from Dollar Tree) - January 14, 2025
