Most products are retired by an operations decision and a product page that one day says “sold out” and never changes. The customers who depend on it find out by trying to reorder. The playbook replaces that surprise with a sequence of messages that gives them time, choice and something to switch to.

Why customers need a last chance

When customers learn a product they rely on is going away, many stock up whether you offer it or not. When Coca-Cola announced its formula change in 1985, by the company’s own account “some consumers panicked, filling their basements with cases of Coke,” and a man in San Antonio bought $1,000 worth from a local bottler Reported. Better that the stock-up happens with you, on a schedule you planned, than on a resale site at three times the price.

The ninety days

1. Day minus 90: decide, and pull the listRun the dependents segment from chapter 7. Choose the replacement: the product past buyers of the original most often also buy, or the closest match in what they bought it for. Size the last buy from dependents’ usage (below).
2. Day minus 75: test the replacement on themSend the replacement free to a random sample of core dependents, 50 to 200 people, and ask one question a week later: would you reorder this instead? If fewer than half say yes, look for a better replacement before you announce. You’re testing whether it replaces the original for the people losing it, not whether new customers like it.
3. Day minus 60: tell them firstA personal note to dependents, before anything public: what’s changing, the honest reason, the last date to order, the replacement and why you chose it, and the stock-up offer. Triers get a shorter version a week later.
4. Day minus 45: send the replacementA free sample of the replacement in the next order of every core dependent, with a note. The best time to try the new thing is while they still have the old one.
5. Day minus 30 to 0: remind, and handle subscriptionsA last-chance reminder at 14 days and at 3 days. Subscribers get a choice: switch to the replacement, stock up, or pause. With no answer, pause and tell them; don’t swap without their yes (chapter 4 has the rule).
6. Day 0 onward: keep the pageLeave the product page up, marked discontinued, with the replacement. Customers will search for it for years.
7. Days 30, 60 and 90: measureWhat share of dependents ordered anything, and what share took the replacement, compared with how the same customers ordered in the 90 days before the announcement. Reach out personally to core dependents who’ve gone quiet.

Tell the people who’ll lose it before you tell anyone else, and give them something tested to switch to.

Sizing the last buy

Say 500 core dependents each use one unit every six weeks, and you offer each up to six months’ supply: four units. If 60% take the full offer, that’s 1,200 units. Add the triers at a lower rate, and hold a little back for customer service. Cap quantities per customer so resellers don’t take it, and price the stock-up at full price or with a modest multi-unit saving. People who depend on a product want it, not a deal; the scarcity does the work a discount would.

Stock-up revenue is pulled forward, so don’t read the spike as growth, and time the replacement’s first reorder reminder for when the stock-up runs out.

When there’s no replacement

Sometimes there isn’t one. Say so plainly and give a larger stock-up allowance. Customers remember who was straight with them when something they relied on went away.

Do this

• Pick the next product on the retirement list and put the seven steps on a calendar, starting 90 days before its last day. If that day is less than 90 days away, compress the steps; don’t skip them.