merchandise vs product

merchandise

noun
  • Goods which are or were offered or intended for sale. 

  • Commercial goods connected (branded) with an entity such as a team, band, company, charity, work of fiction, festival, or meme. (Commonly shortened to merch.) 

verb
  • To engage in in-store promotion of the sale of. 

  • To promote as if for sale. 

  • To engage in in-store promotion of the sale of goods, as by display and arrangement of goods. 

product

noun
  • A commodity offered for sale. 

  • Illegal drugs, especially cocaine, when viewed as a commodity. 

  • Any operation or a result thereof which generalises multiplication of numbers, like the multiplicative operation in a ring, product of types or a categorical product. 

  • Any tangible or intangible good or service that is a result of a process and that is intended for delivery to a customer or end user. 

  • A quantity obtained by multiplication of two or more numbers. 

  • A chemical substance formed as a result of a chemical reaction. 

  • The amount of an artifact that has been created by someone or some process. 

  • Anything that is produced; a result. 

  • Any preparation to be applied to the hair, skin, nails, etc. 

  • A consequence of someone's efforts or of a particular set of circumstances. 

How often have the words merchandise and product occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )