Different types of consumer products

Question: What are the different types of consumer products?

Answer: Marketers usually classify consumer products into four. These 4 types of consumer products all have different characteristics and involve a different a consumer purchasing behavior. They are:

#. Convenience Product:  A type of goods that is purchased often by a consumer without involving much exertion of consideration. There are various types of convenience products are:

i)                  Staple products: Staple products are products that are bought often, routinely, and without much thought. Such as; Rice, Sault, etc.

ii)           Impulse products: Impulse products are products that are bought quickly as unplanned purchases because of a strongly felt need. Such as; Ice-cream, toys, magazines, etc.

iii)           Emergency products: Emergency products are products that are purchased immediately when the need is great. Parts of car, medicine service for emergency patient, raincoat for rainy season, etc.

iv)                 Home delivery products: These products are mainly delivered to customer’s home.

#. Shopping Product: A type of product that requires consumer research and comparison (quality, price and style) of brands. Shopping products are:

i)           Fashion Products: Fashion products are shopping goods that are purchased for their appearance, distinctiveness or style. Such as; garments, gift etc.

ii)                 Service Products: Service goods are durably shopping goods that represent relatively large outlays to the consumer and that usually require repair or other servicing. Such as; TV, Air conditioner etc.

#. Specialty Product:  A product that is not purchased on a regular basis and consumers do extensive research before purchasing these items. The most rarely purchased products among the different types of consumer products are specialty products. For example special jewelry, an expensive car, Rolex watches etc.

#. Unsought Product: An unsought product is a product that a consumer either does not know about or knows about but does not consider buying under normal conditions. Thus these types of consumer products consumers do not think about in ‘normal life’, at least not until they need them.   Such as Life insurance and funeral service, encyclopedia, fire extinguisher and reference books.