Shoppers on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in America, are very aggressive. Some even start

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问题     Shoppers on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in America, are very aggressive. Some even start queuing outside stores before dawn to be the first to lay their hands on heavily discounted goods. Despite the frenzy (疯狂) at many stores, however, the recession appears to have accelerated the pace at which shoppers are abandoning bricks and mortar (实体店) in favour of online retailers—e-tailers. So this year Black Friday 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.
    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 destructive discounting.
    The most obvious response to the growth of e-tailing is for conventional retailers to redouble their own efforts online. The online arms of big retailers are performing well, on the whole.
    Retailers are also trying to make shopping seem fun and exciting to act against 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 (新奇) and urgency.
    Shoppers are increasingly looking for an "experience" when they go to stores, says Jack Anderson of Hornall Anderson, a branding and marketing firm, and are no longer interested in purely "transaction-based bricks and mortar stores". Apple, which encourages customers to try out its devices in its stores, is considered a pioneer of this strategy, and has attracted many imitators.
    Stores are also trying to lure customers by offering services that are not available online. Best Buy, a consumer-electronics retailer, has started selling music lessons along with its musical instruments. The idea is to bring people back to its shops regularly, increasing the likelihood that they will develop the habit of shopping there.
Why is online shopping appealing to customers?

选项 A、Goods sold online tend to be of higher quality.
B、Online shoppers do not have to pay purchase tax.
C、Many online retailers offer free delivery of goods.
D、Prices are often the lowest for the same goods.

答案C

解析 根据题干中的appealing将本题出处定位到第2段前两句。该处提到,在经济萧条的背景下,电子商务尤其具有吸引力:消费者可以轻松快捷地货比三家。顾客有时在网上购物可以避开当地营业税,并且送货时通常免收邮费。[C]“很多网上零售商提供免费送货”是对shipping is often free的同义转述,故答案为[C]。文中未提到商品质量问题,故排除[A];由该段第2句可知,购物者有时(sometimes)可以避开sales taxes,而不是总能避开,故排除[B];该段首句指出,网上购物可以使人们compare prices...quickly and easily,而没说同样的商品其价格最低,[D]是对该句信息的过度推断,故排除。
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