Product

Anything you can purchase (either new or used). The Amapedia top-level category for all thing purchasable.

The only attribute all products have in common is Manufacturer, plus maybe model number and maybe typical price.

Individual products should not be directly placed in this category. Please be as detailed as possible. For example: a product which keeps cats off furniture might be considered a "Cat Training Product" vs. just a "Product".

The noun product is defined as a "thing produced by labor or effort"[1] or the "result of an act or a process"[2], and stems from the verb produce, from the Latin prōdūce(re) ’(to) lead or bring forth’. Since 1575, the word "product" has referred to anything produced[3]. Since 1695, the word has referred to "thing or things produced". The economic or commercial meaning of product was first used by political economist Adam Smith[4].

In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need[5]. In retailing, products are called merchandise. In manufacturing, products are purchased as raw materials and sold as finished goods. Commodities are usually raw materials such as metals and agricultural products, but a commodity can also be anything widely available in the open market. In project management, products are the formal definition of the project deliverables that make up or contribute to delivering the objectives of the project.

In general usage, product may refer to a single item or unit, a group of equivalent products, a grouping of goods or services, or an industrial classification for the goods or services.

The specific meaning of generic product names varies over time and location. It can be defined as anything that can offer to a market for attention, acquisition. Some products such as bread, milk, and salt have been bartered or sold for centuries, but the meaning of "bread" or "milk" as a product varies. The technologies were not available for pasteurization and homogenization of milk until the 20th century, and these food processing technologies are not used worldwide. Bread varies by type of grain, specific recipe, and size of loaf. In 1924, Morton Salt introduced iodized table salt, a product previously unavailable. Since 1961, pork bellies have traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, but due to selective breeding and changes in hog feed, today’s pork belly is not exactly equivalent to a 1960s pork belly. Certain products may be considered equivalent or interchangeable for the purposes of trade, record-keeping, and reporting, despite gradual changes in the product or variations among geographical locations.

The distinction between a new product and a minor modification to an existing product is not always clear. Certain products have a product life cycle in which the supply and demand for the product increases then decreases over time.  A company’s inventory is a set of physical products, or goods, that are usually recorded as counts of equivalent unique products, such as 50 8-oz cans of salsa. The equivalent unique products may be assigned a product code or item code, such that "50 8-oz cans of salsa" is recorded as "50 17766443" on the company’s records. If the company carries two brands of 8-oz salsa, it may assign separate item codes to the brands, or it may use a single item code for both brands. The demand for certain food products such as bread will tend to increase with population, but the supply and demand for a specific brand of bread may decline over time. People sell products to make money. In the United States, a patent for a product is recognition that the product is new in a legal sense. "Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof; design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture; and, plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant."[7] In business an equivalent, interchangeable or fungible product is defined by a company and its customers.
. There can be many products offered by businesses such as ecommerce products, term life insurance products, electronics products, chinese food products, etc.
Product numbers in many businesses clearly identify the product by linking to a full description.[8]

Product identification codes such as Universal Product Code, Global Trade Item Number and International Standard Book Number allow multiple businesses to use a single product identification code to indicate one unit of a mass-produced product.