Virtuous English AcademyBusiness & Trade — B1 English Vocabulary
This B1 vocabulary list gathers 40 intermediate English words about business & trade — products, markets and making a profit. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using business & trade words in English
Commercial vocabulary contains a pronunciation pattern that is genuinely useful and rarely taught: several words on this page are both nouns and verbs, and English distinguishes them by moving the stress. Import and export are the clearest examples. The other thing to sort out here is the family of words for the person who buys — customer, client and consumer are not interchangeable, and businesses care about the difference.
What to watch out for
IM-port the noun, im-PORT the verb
The noun stresses the first syllable and the verb the second: Our IM-ports have risen against We im-PORT most of our steel. Export behaves identically, and so do record, increase, decrease, contract, permit, produce and progress. The pattern is regular enough to guess with: front stress for the noun, back stress for the verb.
Customer, client, consumer
A customer buys goods, usually in a shop. A client buys a professional service and the relationship lasts — lawyers, accountants and agencies have clients. A consumer is the person who finally uses the product, and the word belongs to economics and marketing rather than to a conversation in a shop. Note that consumer forms compounds freely: consumer rights, consumer spending.
Advertise, advertisement, and where the stress goes
The verb is ADvertise and the British noun is adVERtisement, with the stress moving to the second syllable — Americans stress the third. The short forms are advert in British English and ad everywhere. Note also that trade is uncountable when it means commerce — international trade — and that you supply goods to a customer but supply a customer with goods.
Words learners mix up
Three tables: four words that all translate as "company" and do not mean the same thing, the nouns for goods on the move and how oddly they count, and the four words for the money side of a business.
Four words that all look like "company"
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| corporation | A large company, usually one that owns others. Formal, and the adjective corporate is far more common. | The corporation operates in twelve countries. |
| firm | Countable, and used especially of professional businesses: a law firm, an accountancy firm. | She joined a small consultancy firm. |
| enterprise | Either one business or the whole activity of running businesses. It also means boldness in a spirit of enterprise. | The scheme supports small enterprises. |
| headquarters | Ends in -s but names one place. It can take a singular or a plural verb, and there is no headquarter. | Their headquarters is in Manchester. |
Headquarters is the one to store carefully, because it looks plural and behaves as one thing; British writing shortens it to HQ and both take in for the location. Firm is the useful everyday alternative to company in writing, and it also exists as an adjective meaning solid, which is entirely unrelated.
Goods on the move, and how they count
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| goods | Plural only. There is no a good in this sense, and the verb after it is plural. | The goods were damaged in transit. |
| stock | Uncountable when it means what a shop holds: out of stock, in stock. | That model is out of stock. |
| supply | Uncountable for the flow of something and countable in the plural for provisions: medical supplies. | The supply of parts has been disrupted. |
| delivery | Countable, and it takes of. British English also uses it for the act of bringing goods: free delivery. | We are expecting a delivery tomorrow. |
Goods and stock pull in opposite directions and both catch learners: one refuses a singular and the other refuses a plural. In stock and out of stock are fixed phrases with no articles, and they are what a British website actually says next to a product, which makes them worth recognising instantly.
The money side, in four words
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| revenue | All the money coming in, before costs. Uncountable, and formal enough to belong in reports. | Advertising revenue fell last quarter. |
| turnover | The British word for the same figure. It also means how quickly staff leave and are replaced. | The company has an annual turnover of two million. |
| invoice | Countable, and a verb too. It is the formal bill a business sends to another business. | Please pay the invoice within thirty days. |
| tariff | A tax on imported goods. In Britain it also names a published price list, as on a phone contract. | The new tariff raised the price of steel. |
Turnover is a genuinely British word with two unrelated business meanings and a third in a bakery, where it is a folded pastry. Invoice is worth learning as a verb as well — we will invoice you at the end of the month — because that is how it appears in most real business emails.
Collocations that sound natural
Six words from commercial English. Three of them carry a second, entirely everyday sense, and the frame is what tells a reader which one is meant.
competition
face competitionfierce competitioncompetition from abroadwin a competition
Uncountable when it means rivalry between businesses and countable when it means a contest you can enter. So there is a lot of competition and she won a competition use the same word in two grammatical shapes. The person is a competitor in both senses.
launch
launch a productthe launch of the new modela product launcha successful launch
Noun and verb with one spelling. The noun takes of, and a launch party and a launch date are standard compounds. The word comes from ships and rockets, which is why it still carries a sense of something being sent out into the world.
expand
expand into new marketsrapidly expandexpand the rangeplans for expansion
The new market or country takes into. The noun is expansion, uncountable in the business sense, and note that expand is intransitive as well — a company can simply expand with no object at all.
warranty
under warrantya two-year warrantythe warranty coversthe warranty has expired
Countable, and the fixed phrase under warranty takes no article. British consumers also say guarantee for much the same thing, though a warranty is the formal written document and a guarantee is the promise behind it.
deal
do a dealclose a deala good deal on a phonea great deal of money
British English says do a deal where American English prefers make a deal, and both say close a deal for finishing one. Watch the unrelated quantifier: a great deal of simply means a lot of, and it goes with uncountable nouns.
marketing
a marketing campaigndigital marketingthe marketing departmentmarketing strategy
Uncountable, so never marketings, and it works as the first half of compounds far more often than it stands alone. It covers the whole activity of finding and keeping customers, which is much broader than advertising.
Where each word belongs
Seven words carrying a country, a date or a second life outside business. Commercial English borrows heavily from ordinary vocabulary, so several of these mean one thing at work and another at home.
- commercialAdjective in Britain, also a noun in AmericaAs an adjective it means relating to business or done for profit: a commercial decision, commercial property. As a noun it means a television advertisement, which is American; British English says an advert or an ad.
- merchantDated alone · alive in compoundsOn its own it is a historical word for a trader and appears mainly in writing about the past. It stays fully current inside compounds: merchant bank, merchant navy, builders’ merchant. The modern everyday words are trader and supplier.
- entrepreneurFrench · spelling and stressKept its French shape entirely, and the spelling is worth practising letter by letter. The stress falls on the final syllable in British English. The adjective entrepreneurial is common in business writing and adds two more syllables.
- tradeTwo senses · and a British job wordInternational trade is uncountable and abstract. But a trade in British English is a skilled manual job learned by training — plumbing, carpentry — which is why a tradesman is not somebody who trades. The trade can also mean a whole industry.
- monopolyFormal · and a board gameOne company controlling a whole market, and it takes on or over. British English also uses it figuratively — you do not have a monopoly on good ideas — and the capitalised board game has made the word familiar to people who never use it economically.
- serviceCountable and uncountable, with different meaningsUncountable when it means how customers are treated: the service was excellent. Countable when it names something provided: financial services, a bus service. In a British restaurant, service charge is the amount added to the bill.
- productCountable · and its two relativesCountable and straightforward. Its relatives are not: production is the process of making things, and produce as a noun means fresh food from a farm, with the stress moved to the first syllable. All three come from one verb.
Sentences to try
Four frames from commercial writing. Say the stress-shift words aloud in both forms.
- We import most of our raw materials from Asia.
- The company spends very little on advertising.
- Consumer demand for the product has fallen sharply.
- They supply equipment to retail shops across the country.
Questions about business & trade vocabulary
Why does "import" sound different as a noun and a verb?
English marks many two-syllable noun-verb pairs by moving the stress. The noun is IM-port and the verb is im-PORT: Imports rose last year against We import them from Italy. The same applies to export, record, increase, decrease, contract, permit, present, produce, progress and conflict. The pattern is reliable enough to guess from: put the stress on the first syllable for the noun and on the second for the verb.
What is the difference between a customer, a client and a consumer?
A customer buys goods or simple services, typically in a shop or online, and the relationship is usually one transaction at a time. A client buys professional or ongoing services and the relationship is longer and more personal — law firms, accountants, architects and advertising agencies have clients. A consumer is whoever ultimately uses the product, and the word belongs to economics, marketing and regulation: consumer protection, consumer spending. A shop has customers; those customers are also consumers in the wider economy.
How do British people pronounce "advertisement"?
British English stresses the second syllable: ad-VER-tis-ment, with the third syllable reduced. American English stresses the third, keeping a full vowel there. The verb is ADvertise in both varieties, with the stress at the front. In everyday British speech people usually shorten the noun to advert or ad, which sidesteps the question entirely. The related nouns advertising and advertiser both keep the front stress of the verb.