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Retail vs Purchase - What's the difference?

retail | purchase |

As nouns the difference between retail and purchase

is that retail is the sale of goods directly to the consumer; encompassing the storefronts, mail-order, websites, etc, and the corporate mechanisms, branding, advertising, etc that support them, which are involved in the business of selling and point-of-sale marketing retail goods to the public while purchase is (obsolete) the act or process of seeking and obtaining something (eg property, etc).

As verbs the difference between retail and purchase

is that retail is to sell at retail, or in small quantities directly to customers while purchase is to pursue and obtain; to acquire by seeking; to gain, obtain, or acquire.

As an adjective retail

is of, or relating to the (actual or figurative) sale of goods or services directly to individuals.

As an adverb retail

is direct to consumers, in retail quantities, or at retail prices.

retail

English

(wikipedia retail)

Noun

(-)
  • The sale of goods directly to the consumer; encompassing the storefronts, mail-order, websites, etc., and the corporate mechanisms, branding, advertising, etc. that support them, which are involved in the business of selling and point-of-sale marketing retail goods to the public.
  • She works in retail .
  • (colloquial) Retail price; full price; an abbreviated expression, meaning the full suggested price of a particular good or service, before any sale, discount, or other deal.
  • I never pay retail for clothes.

    Derived terms

    * retailer

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Of, or relating to the (actual or figurative) sale of goods or services directly to individuals.
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • Adverb

    (head)
  • Direct to consumers, in retail quantities, or at retail prices.
  • ''We've shut shown our reseller unit. We're only selling retail now.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To sell at retail, or in small quantities directly to customers.
  • * 2005 , .
  • a half part of this purveying is carried on within the city and is called retailing .
  • To repeat or circulate (news or rumours) to others.
  • * 1982 , (Lawrence Durrell), Constance'', Faber & Faber 2004 (''Avignon Quintet ), p. 762:
  • He became quite pale as he retailed these stories to Constance.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=1998 , author= , title=Hot Spots (review of The Warrior's Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience by Michael Ignatieff) , work= , date=February 1 citation , passage=The fantasies of blood libel that Bosnian Serbs retailed' about Bosnian Muslims were the fantasies that Rhinelanders had centuries earlier ' retailed about the Jews they had murdered.}}

    Anagrams

    *

    purchase

    English

    Noun

  • (obsolete) The act or process of seeking and obtaining something (e.g. property, etc.)
  • * Beaumont and Fletcher
  • I'll get meat to have thee, / Or lose my life in the purchase .
  • An individual item one has purchased.
  • The acquisition of title to, or property in, anything for a price; buying for money or its equivalent.
  • They offer a free hamburger with the purchase of a drink.
  • That which is obtained, got or acquired, in any manner, honestly or dishonestly; property; possession; acquisition.
  • That which is obtained for a price in money or its equivalent.
  • He was pleased with his latest purchase .
  • (uncountable) Any mechanical hold or advantage, applied to the raising or removing of heavy bodies, as by a lever, a tackle or capstan.
  • It is hard to get purchase on a nail without a pry bar or hammer.
  • The apparatus, tackle or device by which such mechanical advantage is gained and in nautical terminology the ratio of such a device, like a pulley, or block and tackle.
  • (rock climbing, uncountable) The amount of hold one has from an individual foothold or ledge.
  • (legal, dated) Acquisition of lands or tenements by means other than descent or inheritance, namely, by one's own act or agreement.
  • (Blackstone)

    Derived terms

    * purchase order * repurchase

    Verb

    (purchas)
  • To pursue and obtain; to acquire by seeking; to gain, obtain, or acquire.
  • * Spenser
  • that loves the thing he cannot purchase
  • * Shakespeare
  • Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.
  • * Shakespeare
  • His faults hereditary / Rather than purchased .
  • To buy, obtain by payment of a price in money or its equivalent.
  • to purchase''' land'', ''to '''purchase a house
  • To obtain by any outlay, as of labor, danger, or sacrifice, etc.
  • to purchase favor with flattery
  • * Shakespeare
  • One poor retiring minute / Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends.
  • To expiate by a fine or forfeit.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Not tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.
  • To apply to (anything) a device for obtaining a mechanical advantage; to get a purchase' upon, or apply a ' purchase to.
  • to purchase a cannon
  • To put forth effort to obtain anything; to strive; to exert oneself.
  • * Ld. Berners
  • Duke John of Brabant purchased greatly that the Earl of Flanders should have his daughter in marriage.
  • To constitute the buying power for a purchase, have a trading value.
  • ''Many aristocratic refugees' portable treasures purchased their safe passage and comfortable exile during the revolution

    Synonyms

    * (buy) procure

    Derived terms

    * purchable * purchasing agent * purchasing power