The phrase bulk has numerous distinctive meanings. However, in almost all cases, the time period is related to larger-than-ordinary quantities or length. The verb to bulk up method to grow to be bigger, bulkier. If you spend one year doing weight lifting and observe a high-protein diet, you may bulk up, i.e., your frame will swell in length (grow to be extra muscular).
Large mass or size
If I say: “He raised his large bulk out of the armchair,” it method that he’s a totally huge and heavy man. If a package deal is bulky, it method that it’s miles huge, and possibly hard to hold or handle.
Most – brunt
If I say: “The bulk of his article includes lies,” it method that maximum of the text includes lies.
The Cambridge Dictionary has the following definitions of the term:
“1. Something or a person this is very large. 2. Large size or mass. 3. Most of some thing. 4. In huge quantities (business context).”
This article makes a speciality of the which means of the phrase whilst we use it in a business or economics context.
Bulk purchasing and selling
In the context of purchasing, the time period refers to shopping for some thing in huge portions. In such cases, the client manages to accumulate anything it’s miles for a decrease than ordinary unit fee, i.e., at a discount. If a consumer buys some thing in bulk, the dealer logically sells it withinside the equal way.
Wikipedia.org says the following:
“Bulk purchasing is the acquisition of plenty large portions than the ordinary, for a unit fee this is decrease than the ordinary.”
- Wholesalers and retailers
Wholesalers promote their items in huge quanitities at a reduced unit fee to stores (stores/shops). The large the retailer’s order is, the decrease the unit fee will generally be. Wholesalers are companies that purchase from manufacturers in huge quantities and promote to stores or different companies, additionally in huge quantities. Wholesalers are worried in each bulk buying and selling.
- Many businesses buy in bulk
Apart from stores, different companies additionally purchase in huge portions, inclusive of restaurants, schools, universities, military barracks, huge offices, and hospitals. When a large hospital purchases, for instance eggs, it buys masses of them in a single pass in place of simply one dozen.
When the client receives wholesale fees due to the fact it’s miles a huge order, we are able to say they sold it wholesale, i.e., the single phrase wholesale on its personal can suggest similar to in bulk.
- Individual consumers
Ever due to the fact that deep freezers have become common family appliances some many years ago, many character clients had been bulk purchasing. If you store in a big-container keep inclusive of Costco, you need to buy every product in large numbers than you will in a ordinary supermarket.
These are huge purchases, however in a miles smaller scale than in B2B interactions. B2B stands for business-to-business, which contrasts with B2C, which stands for business-to-consumer.
Bulk cargo
If a freight ship, truck, airplane, or teach is transporting a totally huge amount of an unpackaged commodity, inclusive of wheat, oil, coal, or gravel, we refer to is as bulk cargo.
The material of this sort of cargo can be in particulate, granular, or liquid form. Shippers, manufacturers, and commodity wholesalers frequently test the expenses of transporting bulk commodities on the Baltic Exchange in London. The Baltic Exchange indices also are used to settle FFAs (freight futures).
Etymology of bulk
A word’s origin is its etymology. Studying how a phrase’s which means advanced through the years is likewise a part of etymology.
According to etymonline.com, the term Bulk first emerged in the English language withinside the center of the fourteenth century with the which means “ship’s cargo.” One hundred years later, the term also meant “a heap, the quantity of some thing.”
The phrase originated from the Old Norse word Bulki, which meant “ship’s cargo, a heap.”
The verb to Bulk Up appeard withinside the center of the 15th century with the which means “swell, grow to be extra massive.”