Services and Tangible Products

The first significant difference between physical good and service good is intangibility of service good. Different from physical good, services are intangible activities which provide want, satisfaction and are not necessary related to the sale of a product or another service, and does not result in the ownership of anything. According to Berry and Parasuraman, a physical good is in essence an object while a service good is in essence a performance. Consumers cannot see, touch, weigh and test out a service good since service good cannot be packaged, labeled and displayed for brand development in the same way as physical good. Furthermore, the experience qualities only realised after purchase. It is more challenging for marketers to build a service brand since consumers unable to figure out and compare the POP (points of parity) and POD (points of difference) between service goods. Even customer unable to preview the service before purchasing, service provider still pursue a conscious effort to be different from their competitors, wish is useful for service providers to retain old customers as well as attract new customer.

Different from physical good, which might trend to focus on their product and price, a service good often put a bit more effort in possessing some tangible attributes, for example, employees and facilities. Since service good is all about selling “experience”, most of the attributes attached to a service brand are perception created by the service itself and people and things that provides that service. For example, a hairdressing service provided by a saloon cannot be considered as tangible product that can be created in factories, it is the cumulative impression of how employees treat the customer, how the environment in the saloon, skill of hairdressers, how long the service was taken, and so on. Since service good does not have tangible good to be compared to other competitors, providing better tangible attributes can be useful for service provider to differentiate their good from competitive service goods.

Moreover, a service good also carries an inseparability characteristic, different from physical good that generally produced, then sold and finally consumed, most services are simultaneously produced and consumed, basically means that both consumers and employees play an active role in the creation of the service itself, therefore, service goods brands have more point to contact with the consumers than physical goods brands. Let’s use the hairdressing service again, from