what is sales?

I think sales is either convincing or confusing  a contact and converting him as customer

Sumit, does this answer your question?? :))

A sale is the pinnacle activity involved in selling products or services in return for money or other compensation.
sale - an agreement (or contract) in which property is transferred from the seller (vendor) to the buyer (vendee) for a fixed price in money (paid or agreed to be paid by the buyer)

It is the art of Selling An aircondtioner in Gulu-Manale nor selling Air -Header in Dhar bounded cities in India

Thanks, Mr Bhave, for the referral.
Sales as I understand is the process to satisfying the consumers need (in some cases also creating a want/ desire rather than a need). The process has been present from the time man evolved and realised that each has certain capabilities leading to bartering of services and later goods. There might or might not be a consideration in the form of money, but could also be in the form of a barter, etc.

Sales is the pinnacle activity involved in selling products or services in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity which is completed by the seller, starts with an agreement to an appropriation or request followed by the passing of property or ownership in the item and the application and due settlement of a price, the obligation for which arises due to the seller's requirement to pass ownership, being a price the seller is happy to part with ownership of or any claim upon the item. The purchaser, though a party to the sale, does not execute the sale, only the seller does that. To be precise the sale completes prior to the payment and gives rise to the obligation of payment. If the seller completes the first two above stages (consent and passing ownership) of the sale prior to settlement of the price, the sale is still valid and gives rise to an obligation to pay.

Sale is culmination or fulfillment of a genuine or sometimes not so genuine need generally existing aware fully or unaware fully (as a latent potential in seed form), in an individual and is brought about (or manifested) when the factors of approach by the salesman with his convincing power or otherwise, buying capacity or affordability by the buyer and buyer's interest etc. are matched ... 

It is a natural process of Energo-Cybernetics Strategy where the tension or needs of buyers are met by the sellers of the items which satisfies those needs ... and all the processes explained by makrand happens there

However best sales are not those which do not actually satisfy those needs, unlike people who may sell oil to bald man as told by someone; although it may have involved lot of skills / art etc.

Mr. George, The reason in asking about Sales in an open forum is to get the first hand essence of the experience of people here and the definition from THEIR perspective. I am glad to know that there are several people here who have reached a status in their professional life and have had the time to actually pen down the meaning of SALES as THEY UNDERSTAND!! The question in itself sounds very simple but if you go through the answers, you will find GURUS here on toostep!! Why go to a site when the site is with you??? I would appreciate if you could please pen down your definition as you have experienced it?? 
Thanks a lot!! :))

Sales is a combination of Art, Skills and science and said to be happen when both the parties comes to the mutual unique agreement on the subject.

transfer of ownership of a product or service is sales .. it requires skills as told by mr markand and others .. sales requires smart work than hardwork ..

I guess Makarand has said it all in a nutshell. 

Ask the sales guru at http://groups.google.com/group/sales-guru

A Very Good Question, Thanks for referral Mr. Bhave!!

What I believe is: Sales involves most or many of the following activities, including cultivating prospective buyers
(or leads) in a market segment; conveying the features, advantages and benefits of a product or service to the lead; and closing the sale (or coming to agreement on pricing and services). A sales plan for one product might be very different than that for another product.

A sale is the activity involved in selling products or services in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity.

Sales may be defined as the planning, direction and control of personal selling including recruiting, selecting, equipping, assigning, routing, supervising, motivating and paying as these tasks apply to the sales force. The major objectives being:

1. Increase sales volume
2. Contribute to profit
3. Growth. 

Sales involves most or many of the following activities, including cultivating prospective buyers (or leads) in a market segment; conveying the features, advantages and benefits of a product or service to the lead; and closing the sale (or coming to agreement on pricing and services). 

Every individual needs are different. One individual what he wants, satisfaction and full value of his money from that product, if he gets all Three then we achive and sale will be generate, if he miss any of this three then he simply go back from that product. Sale is depends on our Convince power.

I think sales is the art by which one could sell the product with less effort and minimum of arguments at the willing price. 

Sales is an Art where you should be able to sell a Comb to a Bald man !

R

The concept of sale arises due to various need of each individual.Each individual can't posses all goods that he require to satisfy himsef. Inorder to satisfy his all needs a person has to forgo something in order to get something and this is called sales.

In other words we can say Sales is a medium of exchange to garner value to each other in exchange for something. In olden times it was barter system where people use to exchange goods to goods like Rice to wheat etc to satisfy each others need. 

Now sales is totally currency base where one people get currency in return of goods & service. In accounting terminology it is called Revenue where  currency is generated by selling goods or services. 

Classic definition is exchange of goods / services with some value derived in the exchange mechanism which could be immediate or future. This began with barter, but now are contracts where one party derives or extracts value add from special customerized goods and / or services immediately, over a period of time in exchange for a currency value which again can be negotiated amd put down in contract terms and conditions.

Service provider and buyer will have certain roles and responsibilities throughout the whole process till the engagement is fully serviced and contracted. So by definition, the Sales Person needs to be engaged and available throughout the engagement, else communication gaps between service delivery groups, customer interfaces, end user receiving the service, sales person not being available can create expensive business mistakes.

Marketing will consist of all sets of activities and processes to support and sale process and would entail activities that assist the sales person, tools that engage and attract attention, measurement of effectiveness of these tools and activities to make sales measurable, efficient, increase volumes and margins, and adequately institutionalize the sales activities and  processes to standardize them. In India, excepting for FMCG companies, the Marketing activities to assist sales, especially IT sales is poorly developed, result being the IT sales is a Swim or Sink effort, where the poor guy is generally hanging and doing creative things to escape wrath of Finance people. This is the MAIN REASON WHY everytime there is US recession, our capacities go haywire. Indian IT companies need to go further and work out something to ENSURE the Sales process is also integrated into their SEPG activities, instead of creative situations where a "techno commercial" expert is put overseas and a lot of Bunk is exchanged.

Sales is a process in which a commodity or asset changes over from hand to hand for a deffinite consideration, popularly through currency.
If a commodity changes over to hands in exchange with another commodity, it would be a barter.

Sales is a holistic process required to develop, manage and execute a mutually beneficial transaction of goods or services in exchange of currency that is equvivalent to beneficial value!! In short it is an exchange of goods or services for money that is equal to the aspiration and value of the purchaser!!

It isnt just an art, it has defined pools of skills.It requires skills from the SELLER which entail product knowledge, value for money and comvincing power as against BUYER skills of UNDERSTANDING need, negotiations and Value for money aspiration. It has to meet these criterion!! 

SALES IS JUST AN ART TO CONVINCE CONSUMER THAT THEY WILL GET FULL VALUE FOR THEIR MONEY................