Products have always been thought to have only one particular use. That particular use was the one in which they were designed for. For example, a wire hanger is used to hang up clothes. However, for the customer who has a situation arise, the wire hanger has been unwrapped and transformed to roast marshmallows or as a makeshift fishing hook. Thus, a simple thing to hang clothes has found more than one purpose for such a simple device.
Moreover, the same is true for many different products. More often than not, old products can have more than one purpose. It is up to the business to figure out how the consumer is inventively using the product beyond its intended purpose. It should be noted at this point that not all products are safe to use beyond their intended purpose. All safety precautions must be taken prior to expanding upon this idea to avoid potential lawsuits.
Oftentimes, the business can just consult the reviews both good and bad to gain an understanding of how the product is being used. To speed things up, short non-committal reviews should be skipped as they are really skimpy on exact details. Reviews with depth detail can give very valuable insight even if they place the product itself in a bad light. Although, sometimes all you need is a change of perspective.
For example, a mom would use a product differently than a single man or even a teenager. These different prospects are important for determining how valuable a future market might be. A old product that did not sale very well could be because it was targeted for the wrong market base. There also could be a market that the old product missed entirely and was not capitalized on. The way to find a new use for an old product is to listen to what the customers are doing.