Businesses must satisfy needs and wants of their consumers in order to be successful on the market. Also, the success of a business activity will depend on supplying a product or service that consumers need and want to buy.
Needs
Needs are the basic necessities that a person must have to survive, i.e. food, water, warmth, shelter and clothing. Wants are people’s desires such as the things they would like to have, e.g. a larger house on suburbs, a new 5G smartphone, to go on an overseas holiday to the Maldives, etc.
Need is a good or service which is essential to living. People’s needs are limited. In addition to physiological needs, we also have psychological and emotional needs such as safety and security, friendship, love, respect, recognition and self-actualization.
Wants
Want is a good or service which people would like, but is not essential for living. Wants are infinite as people constantly aim for a better standard of living and quality of life – bigger house, faster car, cooler smartphone.
You have probably identified things that you still want. Make a list of your ten most important ‘wants’. Do you own any of these items?
Can we ever fulfill all of our wants?
The main reason you may have given for not having all of your wants is that you may not have enough money to buy them. But even if you are able to buy these wants in the near future, you may have other wants. However, if you are lucky enough to currently own all of these items, does this mean that you no longer have any other wants? No, this is because our wants are unlimited.
Throughout the world, there are many people who are so poor that they cannot afford to buy the things that they need for living, let alone fulfill all of their wants.
While some people cannot afford to buy their basic needs, others who can afford their basic needs, cannot afford to buy what they still dream about.
In most of those cases, the obvious cause of these problems is that consumers simply do not have enough money. But not only, as our wants are unlimited, we are never able to fulfill all of them as new wants will constantly emerge in our lives.
