People satisfy their needs and want their products. A product is anything that can be offered to satisfy a need or want. Occasionally we will use other terms for product such as offering or solution.
The importance of physical products lies not so much in owning them as in obtaining the services they rendered. We buy a car because it suppliers transportation service. We buy a microwave oven because it supplies a cooking service. Thus physical products are really vehicles that deliver service too.In fact, services are also supplied by other vehicles, such as persons, places activities organizations, and ideas. If we are bored, we can attend a concert and listen to a singer: travel to a beach resort: sing our hearts out a karaoke lounge; join a golf club; or adopt a different philosophy about life.
Manufacturers often making mistake of paying more attention to their physical products than to the services produced by these products. They see themselves as selling a product rather than providing a solution to a need. Yet a woman is not buying lipstick; she is buying “hope”. A carpenter is not buying a drill; he is buying a “hole”.A physical object is a means of packaging a service. The marketer’s job is to sell the benefits or services built into physical products rather than just describe their physical features. Sellers who concentrate their thinking on physical product instead of the consumer’s need are said to suffer from marketing myopia.
What is product?
