The greater cost of using RCA's convenient, built-in system is that it locks the consumer into a single retailer.

No single retailer sells everything on the packing list.

The owner expects a single major retailer to lease the space.

But in the years preceding the outbreak of war it had become by far the largest single retailer.

The idea was to prevent the book business from ceding too much power to a single retailer, as happened with iTunes and music.

Moreover, its Radio Shack outlets make it the biggest single retailer of computers.

But working with a single retailer also meant that Mr Canvin was developing a partnership.

New Yorkers would not allow a main thoroughfare like Madison Avenue to be controlled by a single retailer.

This set marked the first time in history that a musician had signed an exclusive music distribution deal with a single retailer.

"That's more tubas than most factories make for the entire world," much less a single retailer, Mr. Simonetti said.