Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

sunaynnaa...

Good question! Let's break it down:

Goods: in other words, these are physical products, not services (for which the marketing process may be different)

Consumer: In other words the "customer" is the end-user, or consumer. In your agricultural goods example, if you're referring to products bought by farmers, then they would be classified as a business-to-business purchase; if you're referring to products sold by farmers, they're mainly sold to another business (such as a butcher) which processes them (often to turn them into FMCG's) rather than direct to the end-user or consumer. Now, if the farmer is selling direct to the consumer, then, yes, these could be considered FMCG products.

Fast-moving: Important, because the consumer's decision-making process when buying such goods will be different from the decision process when buying "durable" goods (eg. a television set)

Hope this helps to clarify things in your mind!

Good luck,
Bob

I think FMCG is the new terminology for what used to be called CPG -- Consumer Packaged Goods. They're called fast-moving because they are consumed with such frequency that the repurchase cycle is fast/short.

People purchase FMCGs every few weeks or months. Think about bar soaps, laundry detergent, household cleaning products, snack food, personal care products, pet food, paper goods (like toweling paper, tissue, etc), and others of that ilk. Most people purchase these items 6-12 times a year, or more. They move fast off the retail shelves into consumers' pantries. They are "fast moving" consumer goods.

Books or CDs are not FMCGs because most people don't purchase the same item/brand/title multiple times in a short period of time. You buy one, and that's it. You don't consume them and need another one.

Technically produce and meat probably qualify as FMCGs, as do milk, bread, and other perishables, but they are not typically highly differentiated like ice cream, tortilla chips, pasta sauce, and other "packaged" (and branded) goods, so not everyone treats them as FMCGs. They are in the gray area.

Hope this helps. I think I understand the terminology, but it's not something I've given a lot of thought to, as I grew up in a world where the category was called CPG, and things that were not packaged/branded didn't qualify. (Chiquita bananas and Dole pineapples were the exceptions to which we always pointed. Today, I'd probably add Perdue chickens to that short list.)

Also note that store brands and private label products are "branded," or packaged, for this purpose. They qualify as FMCGs, just as brands owned and marketed by large companies/manufacturers.