16

Is there a single word that can represent the phrase "product or service" as in this sentence:

Companies won't succeed unless they can provide a wanted product or service at a fair price.

9
  • 1
    'thing'? You are getting so general the word isn't going to add much value.
    – Oldcat
    Mar 28, 2014 at 17:56
  • 4
    Forget it. There isn't a single word in general use, which is why in many contexts people often use products (or commodities) to mean both physical items and services. Mar 28, 2014 at 18:02
  • 2
    maybe commodity? (In economics, a commodity is a marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs.) Mar 28, 2014 at 18:09
  • 2
  • 2
    I would suggest "deliverable"
    – barkgj
    Jun 5, 2018 at 7:33

8 Answers 8

15

Offerings works quite well.

a thing produced or manufactured for entertainment or sale. –Google

"Companies won't succeed unless they can provide their offerings at a fair price."

1
  • Offerings are synonymous to promotions. Products, or product for the sentence in question, should be the accepted answer since product includes both products & services and is just a common misnomer to think it just includes tangible goods.
    – JNAK
    Dec 22, 2023 at 3:57
18

By the definition used in economics, products include services! Not all products have to be tangible goods. It is perfectly acceptable to say, for example, that a haircut is a product of a barbershop.

2

Good, but that seems to be more of a product and less of a service.

'produce wanted goods' sounds not bad.

2

In Canada the term chosen to describe the scope of a Federal tax was "Goods and Services Tax" (GST). The same choice of words is used by the Antipodeans.

2

About the closest I've found is - solution. Companies won't succeed unless they can provide a solution at a fair price.

The other candidate is - proposition. Companies won't succeed unless their proposition is at a fair price.

3
  • Neither "solution" nor "proposition" has anything to do, necessarily, with products, services, or selling (the market).
    – Drew
    Apr 22, 2014 at 22:18
  • @Drew, "solution" is actually a good word. Selling products and services = selling solutions.
    – Pacerier
    Nov 2, 2016 at 9:32
  • @Pacerier: Please reread: necessarily. Solutions to many things have nothing to do with products, services, or selling. A given product or service might be a solution for some problem, but not all solutions are products or services.
    – Drew
    Nov 2, 2016 at 15:17
1

I'd suggest "output" as a general term which may refer to physical products or services altogether.

3
  • 2
    This is a very bad choice, IMO. (1) It is vague to the point of having nothing necessarily to do with (a) production or (b) service or (c) the market (selling). Using this term to replace what was wanted removes all useful meaning. But since this was chosen perhaps the question as posed does not really reflect what was wanted (i.e., the real question).
    – Drew
    Apr 22, 2014 at 22:17
  • @JOSH, Lol.. frankly this is quite hilarious. You should know the 5k views to this page are from marketers looking for a hyppy term and the word "output" is nothing cool at all.
    – Pacerier
    Nov 2, 2016 at 9:31
  • This is not an ideal choice purely from a language perspective because it depends on the context. If we are talking about the consumer, then output no longer makes sense, so ideally there would be a context insensitive word (as both "service", "product" and "good" are).
    – cammil
    Jan 7, 2017 at 15:25
1

Companies won't succeed unless they can provide a wanted product or service at a fair price.

You could replace the phrase "provide a wanted product or service" with "meet a market demand". The phrase "market demand" can be seen as covering both products and services. As amended, it would be:

Companies won't succeed unless they can meet a market demand at a fair price.

0

In some circumstances it might be better to use 'products' to refer to both goods and services, and use a word like 'goods' when you want to be specific about referring to physical commodities being sold.


Some other suggestions not mentioned in other answers:

  • Deliverable
  • Supply

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.