Product Proliferation, Quality and Price

Abstract

Since people began to trade, the main objective of trade and business has been the satisfaction of different types of needs. Needs and demand have changed as new products and services have been developed. Peasants traded crops, and trade and war expeditions visited faraway places to bring home costly products that could not be produced at home, like spices, porcelain and expensive fabrics. Centuries ago the focus was on the product and of the function of the product. In some areas there were forms of primitive ‘branding’. Wine areas like Burgundy took on an early form of brand recognition, and particular goldsmiths or makers of musical instruments became well known for their skills and developed names for themselves, similar to the brands that we know of today. For the bulk of goods the only thing that most customers could afford was to try to satisfy their most basic needs with products that were generic.