Modern issues in the theory of the service industry: terminology and classification

The article is mainly theoretical in nature, while the abstract provisions are illustrated with examples from modern business practice. The purpose of the study is to establish the relationship between the basic concepts of economics - «product», «service», «product», «commodity» in relation to the service sector. The main provisions of this study, on the one hand, are based on the foundation of scientific results obtained in the field of economic terminology research in different periods of time by foreign and Russian scientists, on the other hand, they show fundamental changes taking place in approaches to the consideration of services in the light of the increasing use of technological devices, in particular robots and automata. The first part of the paper is devoted to the study of the theoretical foundations of the definitions of «product», «service», «product», «commodity» in relation to the service sector, supported by relevant examples of the transformation of business processes of product manufacturers into technologies of service providers. It is indicated that products or services produced for themselves do not act as goods, and products and services are not antipodes. In the second part, a number of classifications of services are considered and it is indicated that some of them are subjective in nature, but can be used in the context of service sector research. The provision that services can be performed by inanimate entities has been put forward and supported by practical examples. The scientific novelty of the research consists in clarifying the relationship between the concepts of «product», «service», «product» and «product» in the field of services, as well as updating the approach to classifying services, taking into account the trends of digitalization in the economy.