Customer

In sales, commerce and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a , buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product or an idea - obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction or exchange for money or some other valuable consideration. An ultimate etymology of "client" may imply someone merely to do business, whereas a purchaser procures goods or services on occasion but a customer customarily or habitually engages in transactions (historically: the collection of tolls or taxes - see ). Such distinctions have no contemporary semantic weight.

In the 21st century customers are generally categorized into two types:

A customer may or may not also be a consumer, but the two notions are distinct, even though the terms are commonly confused. A customer purchases goods; a consumer uses them. An ultimate customer may be a consumer as well, but just as equally may have purchased items for someone else to consume. An intermediate customer is not a consumer at all. The situation is somewhat complicated in that ultimate customers of so-called industrial goods and services (who are entities such as government bodies, manufacturers, and educational and medical institutions) either themselves use up the goods and services that they buy, or incorporate them into other finished products, and so are technically consumers, too. However, they are rarely called that, but are rather called industrial customers or business-to-business customers. Similarly, customers who buy services rather than goods are rarely called consumers.

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