There is a clear difference between goods and services, this is based on how tangible or intangible they are. Goods are tangible products, that is, they are manufactured, stored, transported, and marketed. The services are issued to people and are intangible, they can be a collective or individual action.
Goods
All those tangible objects can be considered as goods, they are material things that can be smelled, touched, and looked at. They are products that are used or consumed.
This concept encompasses everything that can be appropriated or empowered and that can be traded in exchange for money or other goods.
Assets can be classified in different ways, although the most common are:
Free goods: They are those that are needed to satisfy a need.
Movable property: These are those assets that can be moved from one place to another, for example, a vehicle, a bed, a mobile phone, among others.
Real estate: These are those assets that cannot be transferred to other places. These include buildings, houses, and apartments.
Services
They are activities that seek to satisfy the needs of a client. These activities cannot be smelled, seen, or touched and therefore are intangible and are offered in exchange for a benefit, money, or benevolence.
An example of service is public services, those that are offered to a community. They are not always offered by state companies but can be offered by private companies.
An example of a service is telephony, internet, water, gas, public transport, among others.
Differences between goods and services in Points
- The goods are tangible.
- The services are intangible.
- Services cannot be transferred, that is, ownership is not transferred to the end customer.
- The goods can be transferred.
- Services cannot be measured, when we receive them, the effort put into them disappears.
- In services, the client participates much more than in the acquisition of goods.
- In products, establishing a quality model is simple.
- In services, reaching the same quality over and over again is difficult and is something that food chains like Subway, Pizza Hut, and McDonald seek to achieve by homogenizing their systems.
- Assessing the quality of services is much more difficult.
- A service does not have a fixed inventory, because production and consumption of the service occur at the same time and a new production does not start until a customer requests the service.
- In the provision of services, the delay must be minimal. For example, in public transport, the subways must always be on time.
- The goods can be transported or not.
- The services are not transported.
- The goods can be traded or supplied indirectly between the customer and the supplier.
- Many services require direct contact between the service provider and the client.
- The goods are durable.
- The services are punctual or immediate and expire once performed.
- Goods are produced based on capital investment, they need labor and raw materials.
- Services are products of work and generally require only labor.
