unsold merchandise
- noun
:
mercancía no vendida
- The store had to offer big discounts to sell off the unsold merchandise from last year's collection.
Stores have little need to order in more goods when they're already full of unsold merchandise, so China is faced with slumping demand both at home and abroad.
- Stores have little need to order in more goods when they're already full of unsold merchandise, so China is faced with slumping demand both at home and abroad.
Examples
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She decided to donate the unsold merchandise to a local charity rather than throw it away.
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This is all the unsold merchandise from our District Lines T-shirt store, and you can tell which was the least popular of all the designs we've ever done.
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Stores have little need to order in more goods when they're already full of unsold merchandise, so China is faced with slumping demand both at home and abroad.
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Many retailers struggle to clear out unsold merchandise after the holiday season.
Synonyms
A thing that has not been bought or sold
How Traded
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a regular adjective + noun combination where 'unsold' (not sold) directly modifies 'merchandise' (goods), so the meaning 'goods that have not been purchased' is transparently derived from the constituents. This compositional pattern is common in English and cross-linguistically similar, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily understand it.
Etymology
Unsold merchandise creates a clear shop picture: items left on the shelf that were unsold, meaning 'not bought', and are the shop's merchandise, meaning 'goods'. So today it means 'goods that remain available for sale' because nobody has bought them.