Question

Topic: Customer Behavior

Differance Between Customer And Consumer

Posted by Anonymous on12/27/2009 at 3:22 PM ET 250 Points
what the core differance between consumer and customer from the marketing point of view?
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  • Posted on12/27/2009 at 3:42 PM Accepted
    Most typically, consumers are anyone that uses the product or service offered by either your company or by a competitor. In this way, some companies refer to any end user as the consumer. Customers are usually those who have purchased your company only (i.e., the company's customers).

    It should also be noted that consumers are often referred to those served in a retail environment, as in Business-To-Consumer marketing. In a Business-to-Business environment, the end user is often referred to as the customer.

    Hope this helps.
  • Posted bywnelsonon12/27/2009 at 4:02 PM Accepted
    In common conversation, customer and consumer can be considered the same thing. And in many situations they will be the same regardless. "Consumer" is "one who consumes "uses up" something. So in some cases, when the customer uses up the product or service - or is the end of the line in the "food chain," he is the consumer also. In some cases where a sales channel member is considered a customer - an independent distributor or wholesaler where the channel member buys the product and resells it to someone else who consumes it, the channel member is a customer but not a consumer. Also, in a business to business condition, a customer buys the product and uses it to make another product and sells it to the consumer.

    I hope this helps.

    Wayde
  • Posted byPeter (henna gaijin)on12/27/2009 at 4:21 PM Accepted
    Customer is who buys the product
    Consumer is who uses the product
    Often the same, but not always.

    An example of when they are different - vaccine manufacturers sell their products to governmental organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations (the customers). These governmental orgs and NGOs often then give the vaccines away for free to the population they are trying to so serve - that population being the consumers.
  • Posted bymgoodmanon12/27/2009 at 9:58 PM Accepted
    Customers are the people who send you money for your products. Consumers are the ones who actually use the product last. Sometime they are the same; sometime they are different.

    In consumer packaged goods, the retailer is often the customer (who pays the manufacturer/marketer for the product), and the retailer's customer (often a homemaker) is the consumer, or end-user of the product.

    If you are a professional -- like an accountant, or an attorney, or a marketing consultant -- your client (i.e., the individual or company who pays you) is both the customer and the consumer of your services.
  • Posted byGary Bloomeron12/30/2009下午7点46分 Accepted
    Dear drah_3abed251,

    A customer is someone that's bought something from you.
    A consumer is a generic term that refers to a generalized person who consumes "stuff" (which is pretty much all of us—we all consume things).

    Marketing-wise, prospects and leads become searchers or shoppers. When money changes hands, a transaction takes place and shopper becomes a customer. When this happens, the relationship between the two parties changes and takes on a new dynamic—one that, if the retailer has their wits about them, they'll expand on so that a one-time buyer becomes a REPEAT customer.

    Why? Because repeat buyers are more likely to become loyal. One-time buyers might be satisfied, but a satisfied buyer may not always become a loyal customer.

    Loyalty creates word of mouth marketing: referrals and recommendations. When this happens, marketing dollars go farther.

    I hope this helps.

    Gary Bloomer
    Wilmington, DE, USA
  • Posted bymgoodmanon1/2/2010 at 6:39 PM Moderator
    While Nachiket Marathe is technically correct, there's a nuance you need to keep in mind.

    When he buys the chocolate for his girlfriend, he's probably not buying it directly from you. Rather he's buying it at a retail outlet. If you're the manufacturer, YOUR customer is the retailer.

    We often refer to the distribution channel as the "customer chain." That would include everyone who has a decision-making role in getting the product from the manufacturer to the end-user/consumer -- distributor, wholesaler, retailer, sales rep, etc.

    Another nuance: When a mother buys breakfast cereal for her kids, is the mother the consumer or are the kids? Isn't the mother just another gate-keeper, or a surrogate consumer? And what if the kids don't like the cereal and won't eat it? If the mother then throws the cereal away, does she then become the "consumer?"

    (We usually refer to the example above as being an "M4K" situation -- "Mothers for Kids" -- in which the mother is the ultimate decision-maker, even though it's really for her kids' consumption. The mother is "an M4K consumer.")
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