retailer

retailer — noun

1. a company, store, or person that buys products from manufacturers or wholesalers

1.nounC2
Definition

a company, store, or person that buys products from manufacturers or wholesalers and sells them in small quantities to individual customers, rather than to other businesses

Example

The local retailer Otis closed his hardware store after forty-two years.

collocation: local retailer

Nia compared prices across several online retailers before buying the sofa.

Common collocations
  • brick-and-mortar retailer
  • online retailer
  • fashion / clothing / electronics retailer
  • local / independent retailer
  • major / large retailer
  • specialist retailer
Synonyms
  • merchant

    more traditional term, often for a person who trades in a specific type of goods (wine merchant, coal merchant)

  • dealer

    used for specific product categories such as cars, art, or antiques; suggests a more specialised trade

  • seller

    broader and more generic; can refer to any person or platform that sells, including one-off or casual sales

  • vendor

    often used for stalls, markets, or vending machines; can also mean the seller in a formal business transaction

Antonyms
  • wholesaler

    sells goods in large quantities to other businesses, not to the general public

Grammar Patterns

retailer + of + [type of goods]

[adjective] + retailer

the + retailer + 's + [policy / store / network]

Usage Note

Countable noun. Contrast with 'wholesaler' — a retailer sells to individual end customers, while a wholesaler sells large quantities to businesses or other retailers.

Common Mistakes

The factory buys raw materials from a local retailer.
The factory buys raw materials from a local supplier.
a retailer sells finished goods to the public, not raw materials to factories.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All five words describe someone who sells things, but they differ in scope and context. 'Retailer' is the most specific term: it always means a business or person that sells goods in small quantities to the general public — the final link in the supply chain. 'Merchant' is a more traditional word that can cover both wholesale and retail trade, and often implies a specialised trade (a wine merchant). 'Dealer' is used for particular product categories (car dealer, art dealer, antiques dealer) and suggests someone who sources and offers specific items rather than a general store. 'Seller' is the broadest and most informal term — anyone who sells anything can be called a seller, including a child at a lemonade stand. 'Vendor' typically refers to someone selling at a stall, market, or via a vending machine, and in formal contexts it can mean the selling party in a contract. A large fashion chain is a retailer, not a dealer; a person on an online marketplace is a seller; and a stall at a night market is run by a vendor.

retailer ↗merchant ↗dealer ↗seller ↗vendor ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • fashion retailer
  • online retailer
  • local retailer
  • electronics retailer
  • independent retailer

Phrases

  • brick-and-mortar retailer
  • specialist retailer
  • high-street retailer

Prepositions

Etymology

Old FrenchMiddle EnglishEnglish

'Retailer' is formed from 'retail' plus the agent suffix '-er' (meaning 'a person or thing that does something'). 'Retail' entered English in the 1400s from the Old French verb 'retaillier', meaning 'to cut off, pare, or divide into pieces' — itself from 're-' (again) + 'taillier' (to cut). The underlying idea is that a retailer 'cuts' a large supply into smaller portions for individual sale, which is exactly what the word still means today.