What are the Types of Product?

One way that we can differentiate between products is between goods and services. Another way to categorize them or it is either as a consumer product or as a business product.

Consumers buy products to consume them. In other words, they buy them to use them. Consumer products are subject to direct demand. We as consumers want a product and that drives how many products we buy. 

On the other hand, businesses could buy a product just to use it in running their business. Or, they buy it to resell them. 

Business products, on the other hand, the demand is derived. That is, the business's need for the product is derived from a consumer's need to buy it or the need for the product in developing/making another product to sell.

These characteristics make a very big difference in the way we design our marketing strategy

What are the Types of Consumer Products?

The following are the general categories of Consumer product:

Convenience Product

Within consumer products we have convenience products. These are products that people are not gonna spend a lot of time to find or to make a decision about. They mostly buy them out of convenience. So when they want one it needs to be available. 

Shopping Product

Shopping products are those where consumers are willing to put more time and effort into making a decision. In other words, they might be willing to shop around a little bit.

Speciality Product

Specialty products are things people don't buy very often, but they really gonna take their time in making a decision. Sometimes because the price is higher or because it's just an important item to the buyer.

Unsought Products

Last we have unsought products. These are category products where people don't generally think about having to buy them, it's just something that you end up buying. For example, car insurance might be an unsought product.

What are the types of Business Product?

As a marketer we need to think carefully about what it is that we're trying to sell. In other words, what type of business product is it in order to design our marketing strategy for success.

The general categories of business product are as follows:

Installations

The first type that we see here is installations. These are major equipment oftentimes
used in factories or some other aspect of our production facility or process. These are things that we're not going to see people buying very often. Typically, they are very expensive large durable item.

Accessories

Another key type of business product out there are accessories. These are smaller equipment. They might be power tools or just any kind of smaller equipment than an installation. They are typically going to be a little less durable - also a little less expensive. So, we may buy them a little more often, but they're still going to be fairly durable and fairly infrequent purchases.

Raw Material

Next we have raw materials which producer will continuously buy. These are the unprocessed items that we use in creating our product. 

Components

Components are sort of semi-processed items that we use in our in our products. For example, we may not make the majority of the components that go into a product. We are going to buy those from somebody else. So, a component is an item that's been processed or produced by somebody else, as opposed to a raw material which has not been processed. 

Supplies

Supplies can be used in the production process. They can be things like paper products for our break room or our bathrooms. It could be cleaning supplies to keep up our office space or our shop or factory. Office supplies are an example. These are things that we're going to need to keep on hand to run our business but probably not going to incorporate into our product itself.

Business Services

Lastly, we have business services. Lots of businesses out there outsource some aspect of their operation. It could be anywhere from taking care of the lawn in front of the office or outside of the factory to keeping our books or even producing our product.

Related Topics

• What is a Product?
• What Types of Product are There?
• Durable Goods
• How are Goods Different from Services?
• What Components do Products Include?
• What is Product Quality?
• Perceived Value of a Product
• Why is Product Packaging Important?
• White Label Product
• What is Product Warranty?
• Innovation Adoption Curve
• Product Life Cycle