Q.Who is a consumer?

The definition of a consumer hinges on the purpose of the purchase — personal use, not resale or commercial production — which is why this distinction always appears first in any answer.

A consumer is any person who buys goods or hires/avails services for consideration — that is, in exchange for a price — provided the purchase is for personal use and not for resale or for use in commercial production.

Three elements make up this definition, and each matters for how the term is applied in practice. First, there must be a transaction for consideration: a price must actually be paid or promised; someone who receives goods purely as a free gift, with no payment at all, does not fit this specific definition the way a buyer does. Second, the goods or services must actually be bought or availed, not merely offered or displayed — a person browsing in a shop is not yet a consumer in this sense until an actual transaction takes place. Third, and most importantly, the purpose of the purchase must be personal use — a person who buys raw material or goods specifically to resell them, or to use them in manufacturing another product for sale, is acting as a trader or business user, not as a 'consumer' in this protective sense, and generally falls outside the scope of remedies meant for personal buyers.

This personal-use condition exists because consumer-protection law is designed to correct the imbalance between an ordinary individual buyer and an organised seller — a business buying in bulk for resale is presumed to have its own commercial bargaining strength and does not need the same protective umbrella. Getting this distinction right matters, since a large share of examination errors on this topic come from omitting the 'personal use, not resale' condition.

A frequent mistake is omitting the 'for personal use, not resale' qualifier, which is essential — a trader who buys goods purely to resell them is generally not treated as a 'consumer' in this specific sense.