Goods and services

Goods, objects, and activities that seek to satisfy the needs of people.

What are goods and services?

Goods and services are merchandise, objects, and activities that seek to satisfy the needs of people. These are the result of a productive process carried out by economic agents.

The main difference between goods and services is that goods are of a tangible nature, whether it is an object or merchandise, while services are intangible and are defined as an activity provided by a service provider.

 

Characteristics of goods and services

Characteristics of the goods

The main characteristics of the goods are the following:

• Materials: goods can be touched, they are tangible, so their transformation is also possible.
• Utility: they are capable of satisfying a large number of human desires.
• Scarcity: Goods are scarce because they are generally not in abundance, and thus almost always have unrelated value. For example, milk is a scarce good because it is a limited product.
• Transferable: Goods can be transferred between individuals through purchase and sale.

Characteristics of the services

The main characteristics of the services are the following:

• Intangibility: the services cannot be touched, but rather symbolize an action, process, or activity.
• Variability: the services are always different from each other, there are never 2 identical services since the delivery of each service is carried out by a person or staff at specific places and times. By changing any of these aspects, the service offered changes.
• Inseparability: the services provided are not separated from the person receiving the service, but the process is simultaneous.

Difference between goods and services

The following are the main differences between goods and services:

Goods	Services
They are tangible.	They are intangible.
It is something material.	It is a process or activity.
They are homogeneous.	They are heterogeneous.
They are transferable.	They are non-transferable.
They have stock.	They do not have stock.

Examples of goods and services

Here are some representative examples of goods and services:

examples of goods

• The food is offered by a restaurant.
• A cell phone.
• An appliance, be it a coffee maker, a television, etc.
• The software of a computer.
• Vehicles, be it a car or a motorcycle.
• A property, be it a house or an apartment.

Examples of services

• The service offered by a restaurant (waiters, waiters, valet parking, etc.).
• Cell phone repair service.
• Local customer service.
• A programmer who codes the software for a computer.
• The repair service is provided by a mechanical workshop.
• A technician who works in plumbing and carpentry repair .
• Any professional job, whether law, architecture, engineering, etc.

 

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