Difference Between Goods and Services

Goods vs Services

Difference between goods and services is one of the basic topics discussed in subjects such as经济学. If you look at the money spent by you every month on your familybudget, you can easily bifurcate into money spent on goods, and the money spent on services. All the utility bills such as gas, water, and electricity are the services provided to you by different service providers whereas all the grocery apart from gadgets or appliance you purchase from the market classify as goods. The study of all the goods and services produced by a country is an important concept in the study of economics and together they form an important economic indicator known as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country. There are differences in goods and services that will be discussed in this article.

您从市场上购买的移动设备是商品的一个示例，而您与公司签署的合同能够通过它拨打或接听电话是服务的示例。您用来在家烹饪食物的炉子分类为商品，而您每月购买的汽油作为燃料是一个服务的一个例子。同样，您从市场上购买的冰箱是商品，而运行的电力被称为服务。这些示例一定让您了解了什么是善，服务是什么。您在麦当劳（McDonald's）吃的汉堡或在路边摊位中喝的可乐是纯商品的一个例子。纯服务的示例是医生，律师，保险代理商等提供的服务。

What are Goods?

It is thus clear that goods are products that are有形and those that you can hold in your hands or at least see physically. Goods are products that are sold and bought in a market. Service part of any product usually begins after the purchase. You buy an air conditioner and then you are dependent on the services provided by the seller for the maintenance and repair of the product. The ownership of a good is transferable. That means, once you buy a good, it belongs to you. For example, you buy a motorbike. Then, the motorbike belongs to you as the ownership is transferred to you by the seller. Then, we can look at the customer involvement in the production of goods. The involvement of the customer in producing goods is very low. For example, if you take a mobile phone, the company decides how they are going to design it. Sure, customers can say what features they would like to see in a new phone, but not all those features are included in the final product. The company decides what is best and produces. The evaluation of a good is easy. The good is tangible, and you can make a criterion and evaluate a good according to that.

What are Services?

另一方面，服务大多是无形的，在大多数情况下，无法以物理形式看到。简而言之，服务表示为某人做某事的行为。但是，服务的所有权是不可转让的。例如，认为您购买火车票。这并不意味着火车属于您。这只是意味着您可以使用火车提供的服务。这就对了。没有所有权转让。当涉及客户参与时，在服务中，客户更多地参与其中。例如，考虑一下ATM机。 ATM machine needs customer’s full participation to provide its service. Evaluation of different services is difficult. Different individuals or companies who provide the same service may provide it using different methods. So, having one criterion to decide whether a service is good or not, is hard. For example, take two barber shops. One barber shop has all the new equipment. The other does not. However, both get the same amount of customers. So, the service must be good in both. Nevertheless, you cannot make a common criterion to evaluate both.

What is the difference between Goods and Services?

•服务是无形的，商品是有形的。

•一旦生产的商品质量不会有所不同。但是，服务质量取决于服务提供商，并且可能差异很大。

• You own goods, but you utilize services.

• The ownership of goods is transferable. The ownership of services is not transferable.

• The customer involvement in services is remarkably higher than in goods.

•评估商品比评估服务更容易。

• Goods have inventories. These inventories show how many goods were there, how many sold and how many remain. However, services do not have inventories as a service is provided only upon request. So, the production process begins with the order.

• Time is more important in services than in goods. This is because, in a service, production and consumption happens at the same time. If the service is late, that is a delay. Goods do not have this problem as they are already produced.

• Services have impact on the sale of goods, but goods cannot affect the sale of services.

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1. GoodsbyCheuogaiomedia(CC BY-SA 3.0)
2. 英国铁路级390电动多元单位火车在维珍火车涂装by LennartBolks (CC BY-SA 3.0)