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.
What is said about brick-and-mortar stores in the third paragraph?

选项 A、They start to set up their own online stores.
B、They hold a better situation than last year.
C、They make more profits from higher prices.
D、They are not faced with the problem of overstock.

答案B

解析 第3段的后两句谈论到了实体店的情况。末句提到,然而,令人高兴的是,今年传统的零售商能够扳回一局的可能性比去年大,因为去年库存过多,传统零售商被迫亏本打折。由Happily和in a better position可以看出,今年的形势要好于去年,[B]是对原文信息的同义转述,故为答案。第3段提到的实体店的办法是resort to destructive discounting而不是set up their own onlinestores,故排除[A];[C]是针对该段第2句中的whose prices are often higherthan those of e-tailers设的干扰项,文中只是说实体店的价格要比网上销售的高,没说能从中获得更大利润,故排除[C];[D]与该段末句的overstocking forcedthem…信息矛盾,故排除。
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