Concept and levels of the Product:

Definitions of a Product by some famous scholars:

Product means the needs-satisfying offering of a firm. - E.J. McCarthy

Product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption; it includes physical objects, services, personalities, places, organizations, and ideas. - P. Kotler

Product is a set of tangible and intangible attributes, including packaging, color, price, quality, and brand, plus the services, and reputations of the seller. - Stanton, Etzel, and Walker

Product is the most important component of the marketing mix. In any organization, the product is the center of all kinds of marketing operations, for that reason, the organization aims to develop a product that matches the needs of consumers. The organization's competitive edge is fundamentally tied to the efficiency of achieving this goal. If the product fails to satisfy the needs and wants of the consumers, no additional expenditure and effort on any other ingredients of the marketing mix will improve the product performance in the market. Therefore, the product is the heart of the marketing mix and its planning plays a vital role in marketing.

The foremost task of the marketer in the product decision process is to make clear the concept of the product. In other words, the whole effort of the marketer in product decision-making depends upon the acceptance of the product. Whatever a product is meant to a producer does not mean to a marketer or to a customer. Their viewpoint regarding product differs from one another.

Three major viewpoints of a product are enlisted as follows:

• For a manufacturer, a product may be the physical object or service being provided.
• For a customer, a product may be a bundle of satisfaction or the hope of satisfaction (the expectations or benefits)
• For a marketer, a product is what it means to their target customer.

Concept of Product:

• As a tangible product or physical concept
• As an extended product or augmented concept
• As a service product or service concept
• As a total product or total Product concept

Levels of Product:

• The Core Product
• The Actual Product
• The Augmented Product

The Core Product: 

It is the fundamental level of the product. This level answers the questions: What the buyer is actually buying? It means, in designing the product, the manufacturer must define the core, problem-solving benefits the product will provide to the customer. For example; teachers who buy books from 'Buddha Publication' are buying more than a bundle of paper. 

The Actual Product:

It is the second level of the product. At this, a manufacturer must turn the core benefits into an actual product, It means, there should be a development of attributes such as packaging, brand name, quality, design, etc, through which the product is formally recognized to the consumer. For example; textbooks from Buddha Publication is an actual products where their name, layout, features, studying, packaging, etc. have been combined carefully. 

The Augmented Product:

It is an important way to tailor the core or actual product as per the need of an individual consumer. For example; when you buy a laptop, part of an augmented product would be the warranty, after-sales service offered by the manufacturer, etc.

It is important that marketers identify the core value that the customer is seeking from the product, In addition to that, they must find ways to augment it.

This concept is perfectly illustrated by Levitt. According to him, the competition exists not between what companies produce in their factories but what they add to the factory, output in the form of packaging, services, design, quality, promotion, warranty, guarantee, delivery facility, installation, etc.