What Are Tangible Goods (Explained: All You Need To Know)

Wondering: What Are Tangible Goods?

What is a “tangible good” in simple terms?

What’s essential to know?

Keep reading as we have gathered exactly the information that you need!

Let me explain to you what are tangible goods once and for all!

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What Are Tangible Goods

You’re looking to start a business and you were asked if you sell tangible goods…

This made you wonder, what kinds of goods are considered tangible goods?

It’s important to properly determine if you’re selling tangible goods so you can get the right business licenses or permits to comply with local laws.

Tangible goods refer to any type of physical product that you can touch, manipulate, and feel.

For example, when you go to a grocery store, all the products that are sold on the shelves are tangible goods.

When you purchase a tangible good, you will typically exchange cash for a physical item such as a tool, equipment, food, land, property, or anything physical in nature.

Tangible Goods Definition

How do you define tangible goods?

Tangible goods can be defined as anything or any item that can be physically touched, moved, manipulated, picked up, weighed, or measured.

There are countless examples of tangible goods such as books, clothes, furniture, tools, equipment, appliances, cars, jewelry, and more.

One way you can think of tangible goods is to contrast them with intangible goods or services.

For example, legal services, accounting services, massage therapy, or hairstyling services are all services, therefore, not tangible goods.

Service businesses offer “services” to their clients in the form of expertise, knowledge, or experience and that’s intangible.

Software products, digital downloads, music files, digital movies, and other electronic files or software are all intangible goods as you cannot hold a software or digital movie in your hands.

Elements of Tangible Goods

Tangible goods can be anything that you can physically touch, see, feel, taste, measure, weigh, hold, use, or manipulate.

As a result, tangible goods’ main characteristic is that they are produced from other tangible goods.

For example, to bake a cake, you will need to use tangible ingredients like flour, sugar, chocolate, and other tangible goods.

In business, tangible goods also have another important feature that distinguishes them: their packaging.

For example, if you look at a can of Coca-Cola, you will immediately recognize that it’s a tangible good, particularly it’s a specific type of beverage.

You can extract all this information merely by looking at the packaging of the Coca-Cola cans or boxes, by recognizing the brand name Coca-Cola, the packaging colors and so on.

All tangible products are created or manufactured using organic or non-organic products and are sold with a unique type of packaging or branding.

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Tangible Good Benefits

The main benefit of tangible goods is that they physically exist.

A business selling tangible goods can physically show the goods to its customers so they can hold it, try it, see it, inspect it, and ultimately make a purchasing decision.

For example, many people will try out a clothing item in the store before buying it.

The boutique is able to not only display its clothing merchandise but also let customers try it out so they are sure of what they are buying.

Another benefit of tangible goods in business is that you can physically track the goods.

For example, if you have a jewelry store, you know exactly how many pieces of jewelry you have in inventory, how many you sold, how many were returned by customers, and so on.

Also, when a customer returns the tangible goods, you can assess whether it was a product that you sold and if the item is being returned in the same condition as it was originally sold.

Tangible Good Drawbacks

Selling tangible goods can also have its drawbacks.

The main drawback of tangible goods is that they may be more costly to produce, carry in inventory, and sell.

For example, an electronics store must not only purchase the electronics but also have a store large enough to be able to offer consumers a variety of electronic goods.

A manufacturer of tangible goods will not only need to purchase the raw materials, components, and items necessary to produce the goods but will also have to purchase the right machines, equipment, and devices to actually produce the goods.

For example, a car manufacturer has to purchase the raw material and many components to be able to produce a car.

In addition to that, it must hire skilled workers and have specialized devices to produce each automobile.

Tangible Goods Example

What are some examples of tangible goods?

Although it’s impossible to list every tangible good out there, let’s look at some tangible goods that everyone will surely relate to:

• Laptop 
• Smartphone 
• DVD player
• Sport equipment
• Tools
• Food
• Household goods
• Gardening goods

What’s common with all the above items is that they all physically exist and can be touched.

You can pick up a laptop in your hands.

You can physically use different tools to achieve different goals.

You use sporting equipment to play a sport.

A good way to determine if the goods are “tangible” is to see whether you can touch them, pick them up, or physically manipulate them.

If so, then you’re looking at tangible goods.

Tangible Goods vs Intangible Goods

What’s the difference between tangible goods and intangible goods?

Tangible goods refer to pretty much anything that you can touch and that physically exists.

Examples of tangible goods are books, watches, cars, clothes, electronics, TV, or anything physical in nature.

On the other hand, intangible goods are those that do not exist in the physical world.

For example, a software product is an intangible type of good as it cannot be physically touched.

A software product can be used for various purposes but the actual software files are not tangible.

Another example is digital music or digital photos.

You cannot take a digital music file or photo in your hands but you can sure use them on a computer.

As a result, intangible goods are things of value that you cannot hold in your hands as you would with a physical product.

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Takeaways 

So there you have it folks!

What is the meaning of tangible goods?

In a nutshell, tangible goods are any physical products that you have the ability to touch, hold, and see.

They are “tangible”.

Nearly everything sold by manufacturing businesses, merchandising businesses, and in retail is tangible in nature.

On the other hand, intangible goods are things that do not materially exist like software products, digital music, or digital downloads.

Now that you know what are tangible goods, their characteristics, their benefits and drawbacks, good luck with your research!

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