Topic N11 ("Shopping")
I would like to tell you about shopping in the United Kingdom.
Marks & Spencer is Britain's favourite store. Tourists love it
too. It attracts a great variaty of customers from house wives to
millionaires. Princess Diana, Dustin Hoffman and the British
Prime-minister are just a few of its famous customers. Last year
it made a profit of 529 million pounds. Which is more than 10
million a week.
    It all started 105 years ago when a young Polish immigrant
Michael Marks had a stall in Leeds market. He didn't have many
things to sell: some cotton, a little wool, lots of buttons and a
few shoelaces. Above his stall he put the now famous notice:
"Don't ask how much - it's a penny." Ten years later he met Tom
Spencer and together they started Penny stalls in many towns in
the North of England. Today there are 564 brances of Marks &
Spencer all over the world: in America, Canada, Spain, France,
Belguim and Hungary.
    The store bases its business on 3 principals: good value,
good quality and good service. Also, it changes with the times;
once it was all jumpers and knickers. Now it is food, furniture
and flowers as well. Top fashion designers advice on  styles of
clothes. Perhaps, the most important key to its success is its
happy well-trained staff. Conditions of work are excellent. There
are company doctos, dentists, hairdressers, etc. And all the
staff can have lunch for under 40 pence.
    Suprisingly tastes in food and clothes are international.
What sells well in Paris, sells just as well in Newcastle and
Moscow. Their best selling clothes are: for women - jumpers and
knickers (M & S is famous for its knickers); for men - shirts,
socks, pyjamas, dressing gowns and suits; for children  -
underwear and socks. Best sellers in food include:  fresh
chickens, vegetables and sandwiches,  "Chicken   Kiev"   is
internationally the most popular convience food. Shopping in
Britain is also famous for its Freshfood. Freshfood is a chain of
food stores and very successful supermarkets which has grown
tremendously in the twenty years since it was founded, and now it
has branches in the High Streets of all the towns of any size in
Britain. In the beginning the stores sold only foodstuffs, but in
recent years they have diversified enormously and now sell
clothes, books, records, electrical and domestic equipment. The
success of the chain has been due to an enterprising managment
and to attractive layout and display in the stores. It has been
discovered that impulse buying accounts for almost 35 per cent of
the total turn over of the stores. The stores are organized
completly for self-service and customers are encouraged to wander
around the spaciously laid out stands. Special free gifts and
reduced prices are used to tempt customers into the stores and
they can't stand the temptation.
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