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  3. SHOPPERS on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in America, which falls on November 27th this yea

SHOPPERS on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in America, which falls on November 27th this yea

admin2012-01-23  17
问题     SHOPPERS on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in America, which falls on November 27th this year, are notoriously aggressive. Some even start queuing outside stores before dawn to be the first to lay their hands on heavily discounted merchandise. Last year berserk bargain-hunters in the suburbs of New York City trampled a WalMart employee to death. Despite the frenzy at many stores, however, the recession appears to have accelerated the pace at which shoppers are abandoning bricks and mortar in favour of online retailers- e-tailers, in the jargon. So this year Black Friday (so named because it is supposed to put shops into profit for the year) also marks the start of many conventional retailers’ attempts to regain the initiative.
    E-commerce holds particular appeal in straitened times as it enables people to compare prices across retailers quickly and easily. Buyers can sometimes avoid local sales taxes online, and shipping is often free. No wonder, then, that online shopping continues to grow even as the offline sort shrinks. In 2008 retail sales grew by a feeble 1% in America and are expected to decline by more than 3% this year, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade body. In contrast, online sales grew by 13% in 2008 to over $141 billion and are predicted to grow by 11% in 2009, according to Forrester, a consultancy.
    Online-only shopping sites such as Amazon and eBay, two e-commerce giants, have thrived in the downturn. Amazon’s sales rose to around $ 5.5 billion in the third quarter of the year. up by almost 30% from a year before. Listings, chiefly from commercial vendors, have surged so rapidly on eBay that its website briefly crashed on November 21st. The range of items available online is also growing. Amazon has started selling groceries. Consumer-goods companies such as Procter & Gamble (P & G) are encouraging the sale of things like nappies (diapers) and laundry detergent online. At the opposite extreme, the internet is also being used to sell luxury goods. Fabergé, a defunct jewellery-maker known for its gem-encrusted eggs, relaunched in September. It will not open any shops but will instead operate only online.
    The shift in spending to the internet is good news for companies like P & G that lack retail outlets of their own. But it is a big concern for brick-and-mortar retailers, whose prices are often higher than those of e-tailers, since they must bear the extra expense of running stores. Happily, however, conventional retailers are in a better position to fight back than last year, when overstocking forced them to resort to ruinous discounting. Inventories are about 15% lower this year. Some big retailers, such as Saks and Target, have recently reported rising revenues and margins.
    The concept of " mulichannel" shopping, where people can buy the same items from the same retailer in several different ways online, via their mobile phones and in shops—is gaining ground, and retailers are trying to encourage users of one channel to try another. Growing onlinc  traffic may actually increase sales in stores too. According to a spokesman for Macy’s, a departmentstore chain, every dollar a consumer spends online with Macy’s leads to $ 5.70 in spending at a Macy’s store within ten days, because consumers learn about other products online and come into stores to look them over before buying them. Many online retailers offer tools that let people locate the nearest outlet that has a given item in stock.
    Retailers are also trying to make shopping seem fun and exciting to counteract the economic gloom. One common tactic is to set up " pop-up" stores, which appear for a short time before vanishing again, to foster a sense of novelty and urgency. Following the lead of many bricks-and-mortar outfits, eBay recently launched a pop-up in New York where customers could inspect items before ordering them from kiosks.
What does the first paragraph suggest about shoppers?
选项 A、They are always aggressive.
B、Even heavily discounted merchandise can’t arouse their interest in conventional retailers
C、They choose to abandon conventional retailers even on Black Friday.
D、Their passion for online retailers has been promoted by the slump.
答案D
解析 本题考查从第一段中可得出的购物者的情况。该段讲述了黑色星期五通常是美国假日消费季节的开端，这天的消费者特别的积极，今年的黑色星期五恰逢11月27日。往常的这一天，有些人甚至天没亮就在商店门外排队希望可以第一个抢到“大跳水”的商品。去年，纽约市郊沃尔玛超市的一名员工因为顾客疯抢打折商品而被踩踏致死。然而，商场销售虽然火爆，但商场萧条之势却越来越明显，因为消费者正在弃实体商场转而投入在线零售商——行话叫电子零售商——的怀抱。所以今年的黑色星期五(这样命名源于这一天本应该是该年商店盈利的日子)也标志着传统实体零售商收回失地的第一炮。据此，可确定D项为正确选项。A、B、C项与文中内容不符，可排除。
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