4 Concepts of a Product: Physical, Service, Augmented, and Total Concept

Concepts of a Product

There are four concepts of a product in marketing namely – physical concept, service concept, augmented concept, and total product concept.

Do not be confused with the product concept of marketing. It explains a philosophy that consumers prefer those products that have the highest performance, quality, and durability.

Here, we are discussing the ways through which a product can be defined, conceptualized, and understood. They are:

Physical Concept

The physical concept or tangible concept of the product explains that a product is one which has a physical entity. It is the oldest concept of the product.

It defines a product as a set of tangible physical attributes assembled in an identifiable form. Features or attributes of physical products include name, design, color, style, size, quality, taste, durability, etc.

The physical concept of the product is the seller or producer-oriented concept. It does not give emphasis on the needs and satisfaction of consumers. As such, in today’s marketing scenarios, this product concept is not suitable.

Service Concept

As the name suggests, service – this product concept defines a product as a service. Under this concept, a product is an intangible item.

The product can not be seen and touched instead, the consumers and sellers can feel the product. For example, insurance, counseling, banking service, airlines, tourism service, etc.

For example, when you buy a plane ticket from India to America. In return, it does not give you a plane instead it will give you a service to fly from India to America. The document or a ticket is evidence during the process.

Augmented Concept

The augmented concept is also called the extended concept of the product. It is a product that adds additional features, services, and facilities to physical products.

It is a process of making a physical product more than a physical product. It is also called product augmentation.

Augmentation includes adding extra features to a physical product to make look more attractive, qualitative, and competitive in the market.

For example, when you buy a laptop, in addition to the laptop you will get other benefits like warranty, guarantee, maintenance service assurance, manual book, discounts, etc. All these are the parts of the augmentation.

Total Product Concept

The total concept of a product is the broadest concept among all product concepts. It is the latest concept of the product in marketing. Every marketing organizations need to follow this concept.

It is the modern notion of the product which refers to the entire set of benefits a consumer gets when he purchases the product.

As compared to the physical concept, the total concept is totally consumer-oriented product concept. As such it is most suitable in today’s business scenarios. And, companies should adopt this concept to acquire customers, satisfy customers, and retain them.

The total concept of the product is the same as the marketing concept. It focuses on satisfying consumers’ needs and assumes customer satisfaction is key for businesses to succeed in these competitive business settings.

Read Next: Kotler’s 5 Levels of Product