Editing Market saturation (section)

=="Flooding the market"==
When suppliers abruptly offer large quantities for sale and saturate the market, this is known as ''[[flooding the market]]''. 

For example, in advanced economies, more than 97% of households own refrigerators.  Hence, the diffusion rate is more than 97%, and the market is said to be saturated; i.e. further growth of sales of refrigerators will occur basically only as a result of population growth and in cases where one manufacturer is able to gain [[market share]] at the expense of others.

To give another example, in advanced western households (and depending on the economy), the number of automobiles per family is greater than 1. To the extent that further market growth (i.e. growth of the demand for automobiles) is constrained (the main buyers already own the product), the market is said to be basically saturated. Future sales depend on several factors including the rate of obsolescence (at what age cars are replaced), population growth, societal changes such as the spread of multi-car families, and the creation of new niche markets such as sports cars or camper vans.