Remember, a continuum allows people to see how goods and services interact with one another. For example, selling oranges doesn’t really involve too much extra service. You probably won’t need to show someone how to peel an orange or how to eat an orange. The additional services are minimal.

However, a business that’s connected to an industry such as cars requires a lot of intersection between goods and service. Since the automobile industry is one of your examples, I’ll talk about that. A services continuum for a hypothetical car repair shop would take into account how a repair shop requires goods, like the parts needed to fix the cars, but also services, like the people who have to install the parts.

Now I can tell you about a continuum connected to a business that provides services and goods to other businesses. I’ll go with the printing and documents business. Here, there’s goods that are required. If you’re printing, you’ll need a printer, ink, and paper. You’ll also need people to communicate with clients to understand what they’re printing and how they want it to look.

With both the car repair shop and the printing and documents company, you are mixing physical commodities with physical labor. The goods you are selling require additional services. Without those services, the goods wouldn’t be of much use. A person can’t install a car part on their own. If they could, they likely wouldn’t enlist a mechanic. Additionally, a company can’t print out their own documents. If they could, they probably wouldn’t hire a separate business.