To Eaches Own

I can't believe I never noticed this before at the store at which I work: a word, completely invented, ridiculous on the surface, and yet, on reflection, surprisingly useful within its own little universe.

I was unpacking some boxes of various sorts of merchandise when I noticed, written on a package of packages of something-or-other, the legend

EACHES: 12

and I thought, "Eaches? What the hell?" I figured it had to be a mistake, or something that company had simply made up. And then I saw it on another package of something else from another company (6 EACHES), and then another.

Well, what can it mean? One box held 12 variety packs of embroidery floss (25 skeins to the pack); a plastic bag held six cellophane packets of about a dozen feathers each. And after a few minutes, because I can be awfully slow sometimes, it dawned on me that "eaches" likely signifies "this package is not meant for direct sale to the customer, but it contains packages of things which are meant for sale to the customer--and don't break those packages down any further"--or, in short, "12 single items (each containing multiple items)".

I kind of like it. It's a pretty good neologism: it's decipherable and it tells you what you need to know with admirable economy.