Consumer in the context of "Means of production"

A service is an act or use for which a consumer, company, or government is willing to pay. Examples include work done by barbers, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, banks, insurance companies, and so on. Public services are those that society (nation state, fiscal union or region) as a whole pays for. Using resources, skill, ingenuity, and experience, service providers benefit service consumers. Services may be defined as intangible acts or performances whereby the service provider provides value to the customer.

A final good or consumer good is a final product ready for sale that is used by the consumer to satisfy current wants or needs, unlike an intermediate good, which is used to produce other goods. A microwave oven or a bicycle is a final good.

When used in measures of national income and output, the term "final goods" includes only new goods. For example, gross domestic product (GDP) excludes items counted in an earlier year to prevent double counting based on resale of items. In that context, the economic definition of goods also includes what are commonly known as services.

Commerce is the organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions that directly or indirectly contribute to the smooth, unhindered exchange of goods, services, and other things of value—predominantly through transactional processes—at the right time, place, quantity, quality and price through various channels among the original producers and the final consumers within local, regional, national or international economies. The diversity in the distribution of natural resources, differences of human needs and wants, and division of labour along with comparative advantage are the principal factors that give rise to commercial exchanges.

Commerce consists of trade and aids to trade (i.e. auxiliary commercial services) taking place along the entire supply chain. Trade is the exchange of goods (including raw materials, intermediate and finished goods) and services between buyers and sellers in return for an agreed-upon price at traditional (or online) marketplaces. It is categorized into domestic trade, including retail and wholesale as well as local, regional, inter-regional and international/foreign trade (encompassing import, export and entrepôt/re-export trades). The exchange of currencies (in foreign exchange markets), commodities (in commodity markets/exchanges) and securities and derivatives (in stock exchanges and financial markets) in specialized exchange markets, typically operating under the domain of finance and investment, also falls under the umbrella of trade. On the other hand, auxiliary commercial activities (aids to trade) which can facilitate trade include commercial intermediaries, banking, credit financing and related services, transportation, packaging, warehousing, communication, advertising and insurance. Their purpose is to remove hindrances related to direct personal contact, payments, savings, funding, separation of place and time, product protection and preservation, knowledge and risk.

An economic system, or economic order, is a system of production, resource allocation and distribution of goods and services within an economy. It includes the combination of the various institutions, agencies, entities, decision-making processes, and patterns of consumption that comprise the economic structure of a given community.

An economic system is a type of social system. The mode of production is a related concept. All economic systems must confront and solve the four fundamental economic problems:

A filling station (also known as a gas station [US] or petrol station [UK/AU]) is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. It serves as a local fuel depot and retailer who receive fuel products from refineries (via regular tank truck resupplies), keep the fuels in (typically underground) storage tanks, and distribute individual product to motorist consumers at a daily varied price.

The most common fuels sold are motor fuels such as gasoline (a.k.a. petrol, often as multiple products according to different octane ratings) and diesel fuel, as well as liquified petroleum gas (LPG, i.e. autogas), compressed natural gas, compressed hydrogen, hydrogen compressed natural gas, liquid hydrogen, kerosene, alcohol fuels (like methanol, ethanol, butanol, and propanol), biofuels (like straight vegetable oil and biodiesel), or other types of alternative fuels. Fuel dispensers are used to pump fuel into the fuel tanks within vehicles, gauge the volume of fuel transferred to the vehicle, and calculate the financial cost the consumer must pay. Besides fuel pumps, another significant device found in filling stations and capable of refueling certain (compressed-air) vehicles is an air compressor. However, these are generally used to inflate car tires.

In economics, the secondary sector is the economic sector which comprises manufacturing, encompassing industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in construction.

This sector generally takes the output of the primary sector (i.e. raw materials like metals, wood) and creates finished goods suitable for sale to domestic businesses or consumers and for export (via distribution through the tertiary sector). Many of these industries consume large quantities of energy, require factories and use machinery; they are often classified as light or heavy based on such quantities. This also produces waste materials and waste heat that may cause environmental problems or pollution (see negative externalities). Examples include textile production, car manufacturing, and handicraft.

In marketing, a product is an object, or system, or service made available for consumer use as of the consumer demand; it is anything that can be offered to a domestic or an international market to satisfy the desire or need of a customer. In retailing, products are often referred to as merchandise, and in manufacturing, products are bought as raw materials and then sold as finished goods. A service is also regarded as a type of product.

In project management, products are the formal definition of the project deliverables that make up or contribute to delivering the objectives of the project.

A residential community is a community, usually a small town or city, that is composed mostly of residents, as opposed to commercial businesses and/or industrial facilities, all three of which are considered to be the three main types of occupants of the typical community.

Residential communities are typically communities that help support more commercial or industrial communities with consumers and workers. That phenomenon is probably because some people prefer not to live in an urban or industrial area, but rather a suburban or rural setting. For that reason, they are also called dormitory towns, bedroom communities, or commuter towns.

Overconsumption describes a situation where consumers overuse their available goods and services to where they cannot, or do not want to, replenish or reuse them. In microeconomics, this is the point where the marginal cost of a consumer is greater than their marginal utility. The term overconsumption is quite controversial and does not necessarily have a single unifying definition. When used to refer to natural resources to the point where the environment is negatively affected, it is synonymous with the term overexploitation. However, when used in the broader economic sense, overconsumption can refer to all types of goods and services, including artificial ones, e.g., "the overconsumption of alcohol can lead to alcohol poisoning." Overconsumption is driven by several factors of the current global economy, including forces like consumerism, planned obsolescence, economic materialism, and other unsustainable business models, and can be contrasted with sustainable consumption.

Defining the amount of a natural resource required to be consumed for it to count as "overconsumption" is challenging because defining a sustainable capacity of the system requires accounting for many variables. A system's total capacity occurs at regional and worldwide levels, which means that specific regions may have higher consumption levels of certain resources than others due to greater resources without overconsuming a resource. A long-term pattern of overconsumption in any region or ecological system can cause a reduction in natural resources, often resulting in environmental degradation. However, this is only when applying the word to environmental impacts. When used in an economic sense, this point is defined as when the marginal cost of a consumer is equal to their marginal utility. Gossen's law of diminishing utility states that at this point, the consumer realizes the cost of consuming/purchasing another item/good is not worth the amount of utility (also known as happiness or satisfaction from the good) they had received, and therefore is not conducive to the consumer's wellbeing.