Product-Service Continuum

The products offered in the marketplace are a mix of services and goods. Goods Service Continuum explains that organizational products include intangible and tangible elements. Some products are purely tangible, some are purely intangible, and some provide tangible and intangible benefits. The Goods Service Continuum diagram refers to several selected industries' tangibility and intangibility characteristics.  

Features of the product-service continuum:

The product service continuum explains that most of the offerings by the industries are a mix of both tangible and intangible elements.

The offering on the far right side of the continuum is pure service providers, and the offering on the far left side is the pure tangible products providers.

The following table explains the level of the tangibility of some offerings from select industries and the rationale behind them. 

Industry/Product	Level of Tangibility	Rationale
Packed food	Tangible	A physical product is offered without any additional service
Car	Tangible with service support	A tangible product is offered with intangible elements such as finance, free servicing and warranty.
Pre-made meal	Tangible with service	A food product is offered with an essential ingredient prepared quickly on demand.
Fast food	Mixed	Fast food is offered with a balanced mix of tangible and intangible elements. Tangible elements are the food items, and the intangible elements are the use of the facilities, such as seating, services, and restroom.
Formal restaurant	Mixed with a higher level of service	A formal restaurant offers tangible food and drink, but more priority is intangible elements such as high-quality facilities and services.
Airline	Intangible with few tangible products	Airlines offer intangible benefits such as physical movement of people, luggage and goods, and some tangible offerings such as food, beverages and magazines.
Movies	Intangible with some tangible offers	Movies/cinemas offer intangible entertainment with some tangible elements of snacks and drinks.
Hotel	Intangible with least tangible offers	Hotels offer highly intangible in their offerings, such as the use of a room, the hotel's facilities and possible entertainment, with the least tangible offers like bathing and grooming products.
Education/Consulting	Intangible	The industries like education, professional service firms, banking and insurance offer "pure" services as they do not tend to offer anything tangible elements.

References:

1. Hoffman, K. D., & Bateson, J. E. (2016). Services marketing: concepts, strategies, & cases. Cengage learning.

2. Lovelock, C., & Patterson, P. (2015). Services marketing. Pearson Australia.

3. Hamza, V. K., & Saidalavi, K. (2014). A study on online shopping experience and customer satisfaction. Advances In Management, 7(5), 38-44. 

4. k saidalavi, pt misab, & k rasheed. (2020). Effect of E-Servicescape Aesthetics on Pleasure, Arousal and Purchase Intentions; an Empirical Analysis. Journal of Critical Reviews, 7(16), 3606–3615. https://doi.org/10.31838/jcr.07.16.460