Buy in bulk

Buy in bulk

“Buy in bulk.”

I’m going to show you two ways to use this phrase. The first definition of “buy in bulk” is to buy large quantities of something, to buy enough to last you for a long time, to buy more than the average person would purchase.

And the second definition is to buy a commodity loose or unpackaged, especially if that thing typically comes in a small package.

Start with the first way to use it. If you open your refrigerator, you might find a bottle of ketchup. It might be 20 ounces, or if you buy a big bottle, maybe twice that size. But if you run a restaurant, you don’t buy bottles that small. You buy much bigger bottles. You buy in bulk. You buy large quantities of it. It’s cheaper and easier that way.

The last time I was at Office Depot, I bought a package of five blue ball-point pens. That should be enough for the global headquarters of Plain English for a while.

When I worked in Chicago, I worked in an office with many hundreds of employees all in the same office. We went through a lot of office supplies. They didn’t buy pens five to a pack at my old office. They got all their office supplies in bulk. They bought large quantities, big boxes, that would last a long time.

So a family buys a small bottle of ketchup; a restaurant buys in bulk. They buy a bigger quantity than the average, in a larger package, they pay less per ounce for it. An individual buys a package of five pens, a major office employer buys office supplies in bulk—big boxes, cartons full of pens, and each pen costs less per unit.

The other way to use “buy in bulk” is to buy something loose that normally comes packaged. Let’s go to the grocery store. Imagine you have a craving for mixed nuts. You can go to the snack aisle and find small, single-serving packages of mixed nuts. You can find larger bags that might last you a week. You can find still larger jars that you might set out on the coffee table if you have guests. But they all come pre-packaged.

The other way to buy mixed nuts is to buy them in bulk. When you buy nuts in bulk, you go to the section where they’re loose. They’re not pre-measured and pre-packaged. You just get a plastic bag and you scoop your own peanuts, cashews, almonds, sunflower seeds, whatever, and you get however much you want. The point here is not that you buy a lot—the point is that you buy it loose, a little or a lot—your choice. And you don’t pay a fixed price, you pay by the ounce or by the gram.

In a big snowstorm, the local governments put salt and sand on the roads . This keeps the road safe for drivers. And to do that, states and cities buy sand and salt in bulk. That means, they buy it loose and they pay based on the weight or volume they order.

How is this different from buying sand or salt retail? If you own a house or a small apartment building, and you need to sand or salt the sidewalk after a snowstorm, you’ll go to Home Depot and buy a couple bags of sand or salt.

It comes in a bag, it has a barcode, it has a price per bag. You take it to the checkout line, they scan it, you pay, you take it to your car.

But the city of Chicago, the city of Montreal, the state of New York—they don’t go to Home Depot and buy bag after bag of sand. Could you imagine?

No, they buy it in bulk. They buy it loose. It doesn’t come in a bag. Enormous dump trucks show up in July or something. And they dump sand by the ton into large sheds by the side of the highway. The local government needs so much, they don’t pay by the bag, they don’t scan a barcode, they don’t stand in a checkout line. They buy sand and salt in bulk. They pay by the ton and it arrives loose, unpackaged.

So those are your two ways to use buy in bulk. Either you buy larger quantities than a typical shopper (like a restaurant buying a large jug of ketchup), or you buy something loose that typically comes in small packages (like scooping your own almonds and paying by the ounce).

Here are a few other quick examples. You and I buy cleaning supplies at a retail store. But a cleaning company would buy supplies in bulk. They’ll get large quantities of concentrated cleaning solution, large packages of paper towels, things like that.

You can save money by buying pasta in bulk. You can buy large boxes of it and save money because it doesn’t go bad quickly.

Hospitals buy medical supplies and basic medication in bulk. Your local hospital doesn’t buy small jars of over-the-counter painkillers. They buy them loose and in larger quantities.

See you next time!

That brings us to the end of today’s Plain English, lesson 636 on January 1, 2024. Happy New Year!

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We’ll be back on Thursday with a new episode. See you then.