Will call
In North American commerce, the term will call refers to a method of delivery for (purchased) goods where the customer picks up the goods at the seller's place of business. It may also refer to the department within a business where goods are staged for customer pick up. The word "call" is a shortened form of "call for", which means "to come and get", so "will call" literally means "(the customer) will come and get (the goods)".[1]
The term was once widely used throughout all forms of commerce in North America, however, now the term "pick up" is often used. As of 2013[update], it is still in wide use for ticket sales at a box office where patrons of entertainment venues go to pick up pre-purchased tickets for an event, such as a play or concert, either just before the event or in advance. In the wholesale and retail trade industry, a will call memo is given to wholesale delivery drivers as an instruction to pick up items at the address stated on the memo.
Pronunciation [edit]
In a linguistic process similar to initial-stress derived nominalization, the first syllable of the noun phrase is usually stressed ("WILL call") rather than the second syllable in the verb phrase ("will CALL").
United Kingdom [edit]
The equivalent term in the United Kingdom for purchases of tickets is COBO, an acronym for Care Of Box Office. Sometimes this term is only used internally in the box office/ticket office, with certain venues/sellers using the less confusing term "Collections" for the public. Normally in the UK the term used is 'at the door'; such as 'tickets can be collected at the door'.
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ New World Dictionary of the American Language, Simon and Schuster, 1980.
