{"id":47539,"date":"2023-10-20T15:54:05","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/when-your-customer-is-not-a-consumer-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:54:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:54:05","slug":"when-your-customer-is-not-a-consumer-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/when-your-customer-is-not-a-consumer-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"When your customer is not a consumer – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cCustomer\u201d and \u201cconsumer\u201d are two terms that often get muddled up and used interchangeably in everyday usage. This is something I personally can\u2019t stand \u2013 if anyone around here is going to murder the English language it\u2019s Old Taskmaster!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The confusion is understandable \u2013 the two terms often refer to the same person or organisation, especially at retail level. For example, it could correctly be stated Old Taskmaster is both a customer and a consumer of Brandy Old-Fashioneds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, it is certainly possible to have a consumer who is not a customer and vice-versa. Indeed, in some industries it is common.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Especially if you\u2019re about to launch a business, or thinking about setting one up, you need to be mindful of the difference represented between these two terms \u2013 and where (or if) there is a difference between them in your industry.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The basic concept of a customer is simple. They\u2019re the person or organisation purchasing goods or services. Strictly speaking, for example, all of the customers<\/i> of your local toy store are adults \u2013 mostly parents.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In contrast, a consumer is the people or person who ultimately consumes the product or service. So, for example, while the customers<\/i> of the toy store are the parents, their kids are the consumers<\/i> of its products.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now here\u2019s where it starts to get tricky. Sure, there are some commentators who argue businesses and other organisations purchasing goods and services should (at least in some cases) be classed \u2013 or at least treated \u2013 as consumers. However, they are distinctly in the minority.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A business purchasing goods and services from another business is generally classified as being a customer<\/i> rather than as a consumer<\/i>. The assumption is that any business will only purchase goods and services it needs to profitably sell products of its own. This generally includes product being purchased if used by staff (for example the dried coffee in your office kitchen).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What this means \u2013 especially if you sell business to business (B2B) \u2013 is your products could potentially have several levels of customers before it ultimately reaches its ultimate consumer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For example, a toy maker could have a direct customer in the toy wholesaler, an indirect customer in the toy store, another indirect layer of customers in the parents and finally the kids.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you are a toy maker, for example, it could mean you need to market your product at several levels of customers, rather than just the wholesalers you\u2019re immediately selling your products to.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So is there a distinction between customers and consumers in your industry? How many levels of customers do you need to go through to reach your ultimate consumers? And how will this impact your business?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Make sure to think through the potential challenges this could pose to your business before you start-up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Get it done \u2013 today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cCustomer\u201d and \u201cconsumer\u201d are two terms that often get muddled up and used interchangeably in everyday usage. This is something<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}