124 Features Examples (For Products, Services & People)

Features refer to the core aspects of a product, person, service, or thing that make it identifiable and distinguishable from other things.

One of the most common times we think about features is in marketing. Marketers and advertisers will promote the features of a product or service in order to differentiate it in the market and make a sale.

But we can also talk about the features of a person (e.g. eye color, height, skin color, hair color) and even natural features on a landscape (e.g. lakes, rivers, and mountains).

Below is a range of examples.

Product Features Examples

1. Abilities and Functions – Primarily, people are buying products and services for their functionality: what does it do? This is a core product feature. An example might be an oven with the ability to self-clean. This will differentiate it from other ovens on the market.

2. Promised Outcome – While the functionality of a product might appear to be the product’s most important factor, it’s not always the thing that secures the sale. Instead, advertisers focus on the promised outcome. For example, a convertible sportscar might be fast and have great steering, but the promised outcome is the feeling of freedom when driving down a coastal highway!

3. Ease of Use – Many products and services differentiate themselves through ease of use or user experience.

4. Size – The size of a product might be important for travellers, for example. I recently bought a new backpack for traveling and wanted one that was 35L – a little larger than my day pack, but a little smaller than my hiking pack.

5. Appearance – One example of a product that relies heavily on appearance is clothing. People put a very high emphasis on clothes that look good (sometimes at the expense of quality or functionality!).

6. Color – Color is often a differentiating feature when the functionality or quality of the products are not differentiated. Furthermore, society ascribes meaning to colors, such as pink for girls and blue for boys. These social inscriptions can be leveraged for advertising purposes.

7. Quality – Brands try to position themselves as being of higher quality in order to charge a higher price for their products.

8. Reliability – An example of a service that needs to be reliable is an accountant – I recently changed accountants because my old one tended not to answer emails. I found them unreliable.

9. Quantity – To encourage people to select one product over another, brands might promise a greater quantity or use marketing tricks such as increasing the size of packaging to make people feel like they are getting a lot for their money.

10. Price – Banal consumer products like apples, gas, and rice are hard to differentiate on quality. As a result, a rage to have the lowest price becomes one of the most important factors. Efficiency and economies of scale can lower prices for big brands.

11. Refund Policy – Expensive products often require a higher psychological commitment for buyers to pull out their wallets. To help people justify their purchase, brands will often ofer a 7 or 30 day refund policy.

12. Versatility – A versatile product is one that has multiple use cases, or can be used in the same way but in a variety of contexts. For example, a versatile car might be able to drive in the city but also in the snowy mountains on a roadtrip.

13. Insurance Policy – Offering insurance on a product can give consumers the peace of mind that helps them pull out their wallets and make a purchase.

14. Risk Profile – Risk profile often refers to investment products like mutual funds and even the purchase of an online business. Lower risk with strong returns will differentiate the product from others on the market.

15. Safety Features – Products that have inherent dangers, from cars to baby products, are often promoted as having safety features that meet or exceed industry standards.

Other Features in This Category

Human Features Examples

16. Gender – One of the most common ways of separating and categorizing humans is their gender. When seeking to describe someone, this is often the first way of doing so.

17. Height – When police issue reports of theft, they’ll often note the person’s height as a way to help the general public figure out whether they have spotted the outlaw.

18. Ethnicity or Race – A person’s race can be determined by biological features, while their ethnicity is a cultural marker that often overlaps with race due to shared histories of racial groups.

19. Eye Color – Common eye colors include brown, blue, hazel, and green.

20. Facial Expressions – You might describe a person by their common facial expressions, such as “dour”, “deadpan”, or “smiley”.

21. Hair (Style and Color) – A character in a television show or book may have a unique color or style of hair that becomes a defining characteristic. For example, Xena warrior princess was distinguishable for her dutch braids.

22. Character Traits – Besides appearance, we may also have character traits that are features of our identities. Examples can include being a joyful person, serious person, loving person, and so on.

Other Features in This Category

Natural Features Examples

23. Lake – We may be able to direct someone around a landscape by getting them to look for a lake that will act as a marker to orient them. It’s a clearly identifiable natural feature of a landscape.

24. River – Rivers commonly cut through cities and function as economic hubs, making them important city features. They can also act as the geographical boundaries between territorial regions.

25. Mountain – Mountains can be defining features of entire nations – for example, Switzerland is known as a mountainous place. They can also help to describe weather, where mountainous areas are commonly colder and foggier.

26. Ocean – The ocean acts as a natural feature because it generally forms the boundary of a territory, a space for commerce, and a locale with its own warmer weather conditions.

Other Features in This Category

House and Building Features Examples

27. Lighting – When promoting a new house, a real estate agent might point to the facti it has excellent natural light in the morning. Conversely, people may dislike a house because it feels dark and dull due to lack of windows.

28. Number of Bedrooms – The number of bedrooms influences the type of buyer. The more bedrooms, the more likely it is that you’ll appeal to a family. There are exceptions to this rule, however. For example, in a college town, a house with 8 bedrooms might get a lot of demand from college students looking to live together.

29. Location – Location, Location. It’s a central feature influencing property prices. Proximity to good schools is always good, as is proximity to a beach, being in a good neighborhood, or having a great view.

30. Architectural Style – Architectural styles generally refer to higher-end houses or commercial buildings. Examples of architectural styles include classical, gothic, baroque, tudor, art deco, and modern.

31. Backyard – The backyard is its whole sub-category with plenty of its own features examples. For example, you could talk about whether it has a pool, grass, a sauna, a great garden, a pond, and so on.

Other Features in This Category

Conclusion

There are literally countless examples of features. For the sake of this article, I’ve categorized them into features based on buildings, natural features, human features, and product features. But of course, just about anything has features, and explaining those features can help give people a better understanding of what it is and how it’s differentiated from other things in the world.