In terms of definition, legislation and delivery, products and services were always separated at birth. Simply put, a product has always been seen as a pre-packaged physical output that a customer could ideally consume without any intermediary intervention. Service, on the other hand, is a human-mediated outcome that thrives on dual pillars of efficacy and emotion. Well, welcome now to the universe of 'experience cocktails', where 'product' values and 'service' attributes combine effortlessly to construct integrated brand value propositions.

In multiple till-now unidirectional categories, products and services are merging role definitions. Customers who used to only buy cars and bikes are now increasingly also indulging in ride-hailing services like Uber, Rapido, Ola and inDrive, an industry expected to reach $6.22 bn by 2030, driving a CAGR of 39%.

Wellness product company Livpure is thriving in its disruptive water-as-a-service (Waas) business, the subscription model for water purifiers contributing handsomely to an EBITDA increase of 389%. OTT subscriptions mean a lot more than the TV-plus intermediary product combo. Valued at $8.94 bn in 2024, the streaming platform industry in India is projected to grow to $23.88 bn by 2030, at a CAGR of 17.79%. Spotify has done an encore for the music industry, with a personalised playlist replacing CDs and pen drives.

Urban Company (UC) offers services from plumbing to beauty in a structured 'productised' format, earning a handsome revenue of ₹1,114 cr in 2025, with growth of 38%. Domino's Pizza was perhaps the first to institutionalise the delivery-plus model more than two decades ago, prioritising service over product. Today, the Swiggy-Zomato food delivery nexus is leading a foodtech coliseum, expected to be $320 bn in 2033, with CAGR of 25%. The ecommerce juggernaut is eyeing a climb from $70 bn to $325 bn, currently 7% of retail, at a CAGR of 21%. Meanwhile, quick commerce is moving from $5.38 bn to $11.08 bn by 2030, with CAGR of 15%.

Consumers will vouch that digital commerce is a classic use case of the experience cocktail, in which every kind of product is valued sharply within a service context, leading to newly minted loyalty equations.

Lenskart, with $755 mn revenue in 2025, is growing rapidly, with the home-based interface becoming a valuable differentiator in the otherwise brick-and-mortar spectacles market. Omnichannel retailer BlueStone is celebrating home-service evolution in yet another orthodox engagement - jewellery - with a revenue of ₹1,830 cr, enjoying 40% growth.

The healthcare sector is enjoying the fruits of experience cocktails, expected to touch $610 bn by 2026. Tata 1mg and its peers are now bringing diagnostics to the living room, suddenly making phlebotomist dynamics (blood collection and reports) overwhelm hardcore scientific acumen of legacy labs. Even the finest surgical skill sets are now at the mercy of corporate hospital products, which are mostly driven by VC funds like Temasek.

Hunger suppressant weight-loss regimes of prescription meds like Mounjaro (tirzepatide) and Wegovy (semaglutide) are now seeking able allies in restaurant menus, providing gourmet solutions without gourmand portions to pamper shrunk appetites.

In every scenario, the shift is palpable. Product and service are no longer valid as separate definition variables. We are now immersed in the era of unified outcomes. Thus, the customer judgement process is both integrated and experiential, with craft and engineering often becoming undeserving casualties in a delivery-driven world view. Perhaps our consumers are in overt self-pampering mode, a first-generation abundance of choice liberated from post-(post?)-Nehruvian restraint, leading to a bias toward process over passion.

As AI casts an overwhelming arc over the way we live and consume, experience cocktails will acquire even more significant dimensions. Internet search traffic is reducing by around 15% annually, as customers are succumbing to curated recommendations. AI can become the supersmart third ingredient in the cocktail, aligning thoughtfully with product and service as the stimulus for creating personalised engagements, predictive gratification and accelerated service metrics - a troika that will help shape the future of consumption and transactions as we know it.

Marketers will benefit deeply by incorporating this awesome threesome equilibrium within their brand value proposition. AI can become a valuable ally by developing content for chatbots rather than for human eyes, and pre-empting customer needs ethically and in a scalable manner. Even the most accomplished products can benefit from dynamic service-level acceleration, while services - whether legal, medical or advisory - will thrive in structures with consistent deliverables and minimal subjectivity.

The beauty of envisioned future is the acumen to effortlessly straddle yesterday, today and tomorrow, from a sincerely customer-centric lens. This festive season as we shop till we drop, and then get up again to shop more, experience cocktails may well offer the answers we seek, furthering community and culture well beyond mere transactions and business.