What is a Service?

While people tend to have a common understanding of what makes something a product there is little agreement about the definition of service. Some suggest that services are: intangible, perishable, experiential, and co-produced between customers and providers, but while these traits can be associated with many services they do not sufficiently distinguish services from goods. They also skew conceptions of services towards particular types of services and don't include many web-based services. I'll review current conceptions of services and propose new frameworks for understanding and classifying them.