Editing Tertiary sector of the economy (section)

{{short description|Service sector}}
{{Redirect|Service industry|the Austin, Texas-based band|The Service Industry}}
{{For|the part of the economy sometimes referred to as the "third sector"|Voluntary sector}}
{{Economic sectors}}

[[File:Product’s lifecycle.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|The [[product lifecycle]]]]

The '''tertiary sector of the economy''', generally known as the '''service sector''', is the third of the three [[economic sector]]s in the [[three-sector model]] (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the [[primary sector]] ([[raw material]]s) and the [[secondary sector]] ([[manufacturing]]).

The tertiary sector consists of the provision of [[Service (economics)|services]] instead of [[Product (business)|end products]].  Services (also known as "[[Intangible good|intangible goods]]") include attention, advice, access, experience and [[affective labour]]. 

The tertiary sector involves the provision of services to other businesses as well as to final consumers. Services may involve the [[transport]], [[distribution (economics)|distribution]] and sale of goods from a producer to a consumer, as may happen in [[wholesaler|wholesaling]] and [[retailer|retailing]], [[pest control]] or [[financial services]]. The goods may be transformed in the process of providing the service, as happens in the [[restaurant]] industry. However, the focus is on people by interacting with them and serving the customers rather than transforming the physical goods. The [[information economy|production of information]] has been long regarded as a service, but some economists now attribute it to a fourth sector, called the [[quaternary sector]].