Recently I’ve been curious about an ongoing trend with companies referring to people as consumers rather than customers.

I used to think it was because businesses no longer had any respect for people who bought their products and services. It conjures up images of people buying products, sitting on their fat arses and guzzling whatever a company can throw at them, being too stupid to realise what they’re doing. (Kinda sounds like an iFad person, doesn’t it?)

However, a short article on the web site ConsumerPop explains the difference very well:

  • a customer purchases items from a company;
  • a consumer purchases and uses items from a company.

In a nutshell, “consumers” are actually the end users: people who buy products to use them. Therefore not all customers are “consumers”.

I just wish they could have thought of a better name for “consumers”.