A product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or

consumption and that might satisfy a want or need. It includes physical objects, services,
persons, places, organizations, and ideas.' Pure' Services are distinguished from 'physical'
products on the basis of intangibility, inseparability, variability and perish ability. Services
are a form of product that consist of activities, benefits, or satisfactions offered for sale that
are essentially intangible and do not result in the ownership of anything.
There are basically five level of product that is explained below.
1. Core Product:
Core product is the basic form of the product. In other words, it is the main benefit
sought by customers in an attempt to satisfy their needs as recognized by the gap
between the ideal state and actual state. It should answer the question What is buyer
really buying?
2. Basic Product:
Basic product is the fundamental goods that can be provided. It is composed of basic
characteristic of the product sought by the consumer. It consists of those characteristic
or features that are essential for the proper functioning which includes quality level,
features, design, brand name, packing etc. It should answer the question What the
product actually is?
3. Expected Product:
Expected product is the set of attribute and conditions that the buyer normally expects
in buying the product. It consists of all the attributes and conditions buyers seek in an
ideal product as per buyer needs. Expected product is built for fulfilling the condition
of core product and basic product.
4. Augmented Product:
Augmented product is additional services and benefits that the seller added to
distinguish the offer from competitors. It is the totality of the benefits received by the
buyer in buying the product.
5. Potential Product:
Potential product is the set of possible new features and services that might eventually
be added to the offer that exceeds customers expectorations. It is also the
transformation the product undergoes in future for better enhancement of that product.
In case of service lets take an example of the transportation services. The main function of
transportation services is to help people travel for one place or another i.e. transportation.
This is the core product of transportation services. People sought transportation services
when they recognize the need of traveling from one place to another. Basic product in
transportation services may be the transportation means i.e. bus, planes, train, etc which helps
in proper functioning of the transportation services. People may expect the transportation
services provides have lets say ac facilities or a cafeteria or smoking zone which is the
expected product that was expected by the buyer while purchasing the services. To
distinguish itself from its other competitors if the transportation services provided certain
percent discount or pick and drop facilities to its buyer that can be an example of augmented
product. Transportation services may incorporated various sightseeing activities in tourist
area where ever it pass by or free trip for its buyer after collecting desired points which is
given on the basis of the time they use the service etc. can exceeds the buyers expectation
which can be termed as the potential product which add new features to existing product.
Therefore a product is more than a simple set of tangible features. Buyer tends to see the
product as the complex bundle of benefits that satisfy their needs.
At any given time, buyer probably in a buying stage for a service. Buyer is thinking about
the different types of services he/she want or need to eventually buy, how they are going to
find the best ones at the best price, and where and how will you buy them. Meanwhile, there
are other services they have already purchased that they are evaluating. Some might be better
than others. Will they discard them, and if so, how? Then what will they buy? Where does
that process start?
The process basically starts as follows:
1. Need Recognition:
You plan to travel around the country after you complete your under-graduation and
dont have a particularly good travelling experience. You realize that you must get a
good travel agency and a nice transportation services. Recognizing a need may
involve something as simple as running out of vegetables in your kitchen or running
out of drinking water while hiking or realizing that you must get a transportation
services to travel around the country. Marketers of transportation service try to show
consumers how their products and services add value and help satisfy needs and
wants.
2. Search for Information:
For products such as vegetables and water, you may simply recognize the need, go to
the store, and buy more. However, if you are purchasing a travel service, you may
need to get information on different alternatives. Maybe you have use the
transportation service several times before and know what you like and dont like
about them. Or there might be a particular transportation services provider that youve
use in the past that you liked and want to use their services in the future. This is a
great position for the company that owns the transportation service to be in something
firms strive for. Because it often means you will limit your search and simply buy
their services again. If what you already know about transportation service doesnt
provide you with enough information, youll probably continue to gather information
from various sources. Frequently people ask friends, family, and neighbors about their
experiences with the services. Magazines such as Consumer Reports or Travel
Magazine might also help you. These day internet can also be helpful for gathering
the information.
3. Evaluation of Alternatives:
Obviously, there are hundreds of different transportation services available. Its not
possible for you to examine all of them. In fact, good salespeople and marketing
professionals know that providing you with too many choices can be so
overwhelming that you might not buy anything at all. Consequently, you may use
choice heuristics or rules of thumb that provide mental shortcuts in the decision-
making process. You may also develop evaluative criteria to help you narrow down
your choices. Transportation services that meet your initial criteria before the
consideration will determine the set of activities youll consider for using. There are
certain evaluative criteria that are important to you such as the price of the service, the
facilities provided, the number of choice of destination, etc. Some of these
characteristics are more important than others. Services provider want to convince
you that the evaluative criteria you are considering reflect the strengths of their
service. For example, you might not have thought about the duration of the travel you
want to buy. However, a transport service provider remind you through magazine ads,
and its Web site that you should pay attention to these featuresfeatures that happen
to be key selling points of its service.
4. Choice or purchase:
With low-involvement purchases, consumers may go from recognizing a need to
purchasing the product. However, for transportation services for a tour, you decide
which one to purchase after you have evaluated different alternatives. In addition to
which transportation services, you are probably also making other decisions at this
stage, including where and how to purchase the transportation service and on what
terms. Maybe the service was cheaper at one provider than another, but the
salesperson there was rude. Or maybe you decide to order online because youre too
busy to go to the provider. Other decisions related to the purchase, particularly those
related to big-ticket items, are made at this point.
5. Post-purchase Behavior:
At this point in the process you decide whether the transportation service you
purchased is everything it was cracked up to be. Hopefully it is. If its not, youre
likely to suffer whats called post-purchase dissonance. You might call it buyers
remorse. Typically, dissonance occurs when a service does not meet your
expectations. Consumers are more likely to experience dissonance with services that
are relatively expensive and that are purchased infrequently. You want to feel good
about your purchase, but you dont. You begin to wonder whether you should have
waited to get a better price, purchased something else, or gathered more information
first. Consumers commonly feel this way, which is a problem for sellers. If you dont
feel good about what youve purchased from them, you might cancel the service and
never purchase anything from service provider again. Or, worse yet, you might tell
everyone you know how bad the service was.
Hence consumers go through distinct buying phases when they purchase products from
realizing the need for wanting something, searching for information about the item,
evaluating different products, choosing a product and purchasing it, using and evaluating the
product after the purchase, and disposing of the product. A consumers level of involvement
is how interested he or she is in buying and consuming a product. Low-involvement products
are usually inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if he or she makes a mistake by
purchasing them. High-involvement products carry a high risk to the buyer if they fail, are
complex, or have high price tags. Limited-involvement products fall somewhere in between.