30

Part of me thinks there may be, but the way you sometimes see them used interchangeably also makes me think that consumer has taken on much of the same meaning as customer. Maybe depends on from which context you're speaking, i.e. out/in business?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Fondots@lemmy.world 28 points 10 months ago

Customer is who purchase the product, consumer is the end-user, the actual person or entity that will use it.

If you buy, for example, a Samsung TV from Walmart. Walmart is Samsung's customer, but they are not the consumer. Walmart, in some fashion, is paying Samsung for that TV and reselling it to you. You are the consumer of that TV and a customer of both Samsung and Walmart.

Hypothetically if you're gifted a Samsung TV and spent no money on it yourself, you are technically a samsung consumer, but not a customer.

In common usage, the terms are often going to be used as synonyms, if you have a problem with your TV you're going to call Samsung customer service, whether or not you actually are technically a customer.

this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
30 points (94.1% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35806 readers
167 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS