More broadly, while many retail experts blamed the softening economy in general, Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research, said a lot of consumers were just plain bored with the merchandise.
Hide your merchandise in plain sight.
But would I? Often, refurbished merchandise comes in plain white boxes instead of factory-fresh shrink-wrapped packaging.
And on top of that we are supposed to call them Phoenixes or Kestrels or some other nickname either impertinently appropriated from the grass-roots fans and stuck on all the merchandising or just plain made up.
"While the lifestyle thing is a good idea, the merchandise angle à la Coke is plain dumb and ignores the lessons of the past: People like Coke beverages, not Coke merchandise.
And with the economy weak, consumers who are short of cash may prefer returned goods in plain brown cardboard boxes over brand new, more expensive merchandise in shiny packages.
A Photographer Who Loves to Shop Carol Kleck describes Klecktibles, the shop she opened a year ago in her hometown, Irvington, as part gallery, part boutique and its merchandise as part hip, eclectic décor and part plain old Americana.
The store's usual dizzying abundance of merchandise will naturally also be geared to the self-styled "plain people," a culture divided into several subsects, including: Old Order, New Order, Andy Weaver Amish, Beachy Amish, and Swartzentruber.
THE forthcoming exhibition of jazz-related movies, posters, video clips and merchandise at the Museum of Modern Art is dauntingly vast, but its title could not be plainer: "Jazz Score".
Trailed by a couple of other anticrime officers in plain clothes, Sergeant Newsom asked for the vendors' tax stamp, something the two men would need to sell merchandise on the street legally.
Bloggers move merchandise.
