Consumer Goods

Consumer Goods, physical or man-made objects bought by (or, technically, capable of being bought by) ordinary people. Consumer goods, may be items for immediate consumption, such as a TV dinner or a bar of chocolate. Others are commonly referred to as consumer durables: items with longer-term use such as video cassette recorders, computers, or washing machines. However, when the same item (a computer, for example) is bought by a business, it is, according to economic theory, a “producer good” because it is the use to which it is put that determines how it is classified.

In common (non-technical) usage, the term consumer goods refers to manufactured goods that are produced for and bought by families or individuals for personal use. Some, such as washing machines, refrigerators, and dishwashers are often called “white goods”, after the white enamel finish that most of them have (or used to have). Others, such as hi-fis and televisions, are still sometimes referred to as “brown goods”, even though their casings are often anything but brown.

Levels of ownership of consumer goods are used as one indication of standards of living, but they also provide insights into the nature of individual societies. Such statistics are also useful for businesses considering market opportunities. For example, in 1992 the proportion of households that had a dishwasher was more than 50 per cent in the United States, 33 per cent in France, and 11 per cent in the United Kingdom and Spain (Euromonitor). In this instance the relatively low figure for the United Kingdom reflected the importance people attached to dishwasher ownership there more than it did overall living standards. Taking another example, the proportion of households that had a video cassette recorder (VCR), the figures for the same four countries were 72 per cent in the United Kingdom, 70 per cent in the United States, 54 per cent in France, and 45 per cent in Spain. In this instance the high figure for the United Kingdom primarily reflected the big role television (in one form or another) played in people's lives there.