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For examples, we do not buy a pen, but writing service. Similarly, we do not buy a
car, but transportation service. Just owning product is not enough. It must serve our
need and want. Thus, physical product is just a vehicle or medium that offer
services, benefits, and satisfaction to us.
Product can also be referred as a bundle of satisfaction, physical and
psychological both. Product includes:
1. Core Product:
Core product includes basic contents, benefits, qualities, or utilities.
2. Product-related Features:
They include colour, branding, packing, labeling, and varieties.
3. Product-related Services:
They include after-sales services, installation, guarantee and warrantee, free home
delivery, free repairing, and so forth. As per the definition, anything which can
satisfy need and want of consumers is a product. Thus, product may be in form of
physical object, person, idea, activity, or organisation that can provide any kind of
services that satisfy some customer needs or wants.
Characteristics of Product:
Careful analysis of concept of product essentially reveals following
features:
1. Product is one of the elements of marketing mix or programme.
2. Different people perceive it differently. Management, society, and consumers
have different expectations.
3. Product includes both good and service.
4. Marketer can actualize its goals by producing, selling, improving, and modifying
the product.
5. Product is a base for entire marketing programme.
6. In marketing terminology, product means a complete product that can be sold to
consumers. That means branding, labeling, colour, services, etc., constitute the
product.
7. Product includes total offers, including main qualities, features, and services.
8. It includes tangible and non-tangible features or benefits.
Product concept: The product concept proposes that consumers will prefer
products that have better quality, performance and features as opposed to a normal
product. The concept is truly applicable in some niches such as electronics and
mobile handsets.
Thus companies following the product concept need to concentrate on their
technology such that they provide with excellent feature rich and innovative
products for optimum customer satisfaction.
Product mix:
The term product mix implies all the products offered by a firm for sale. It may
consist of one line products or several allied product lines.
Product line refers to an assortment or class of similar or related products and
services. They may be similar in technology, customers needs, channel used,
market served or in some other respect. An individual product in a line is known as
a product item. There are several product items in a product line.
Product mix has three important aspectswidth, depth and consistency. Width of
the product mix is measured by the number and variety of product lines offered by
a firm. It shows the degree of diversification of a firms activities. The depth of
product mix is determined by the number of items in a product line.
By offering several brands of a product, a firm can cater to widely varying needs
and tastes of customers and thereby beat its competitors. For instance, the range of
bathing soaps (Lifebouy, Lux, Rexona, Liril, etc.) offered by Hindustan Lever Ltd.
shows the depth of its product line while the width of its product mix consists of
Dalda Vanaspati, Close-up Toothpaste, Talcum powder, etc. in addition to the soaps.
The consistency of product mix refers to the degree of similarity between product
lines in terms of their end-use, production requirements, price ranges, distribution
channels, advertising media, etc.
These dimensions of the product mix serve as guides to decisions regarding the
additions and deletions of product items and line. By increasing the consistency of
product mix, a firm can reduce its costs of operations and acquire unparalleled
reputation in the market.