What is the difference between Customer and Consumer?

Customers and consumers are important terms in the business world. They are so important because a business is useless without a customer or consumer coming to purchase what you are selling. Although both terms are interrelated, they are not totally the same. A customer is referring to a person who purchases or receives a product or enjoys the service of a business enterprise. This means once you are buying a product or service from a business, you are automatically considered a customer.

A consumer, on the other hand, is someone who is not only purchasing a product but also consumes the product. Customer can be seen as a general term for purchasers and consumers. For example, when you buy a bag, you are a customer of that business. But when you buy things like drinks, although you are first a customer, at the same time you are a consumer.

A consumer is a person that buy goods from you, that is he or she pays for purchasing a product from you, they are called the buyer, on the other hands, a consumer is the one that consumes or uses your goods or products, and they are called the end users. It is not necessary for a consumer to buy goods from you before they consume the goods while a customer must purchase products from you before he or she can consume it. A customer can be a business entity or even an individual, but a consumer can be a family or any group of people.

A customer always pays for the goods or product purchased, but a consumer does not necessarily pay for the goods, like a situation where the good is being given out as a gift or purchased by the parent of a child. Moreover, a customer can buy goods or products purposely for resale, but a consumer gets a good purposely for consumption.