Shops and services

Modern society is called ‚consumer society‘ = is a society in which material goods are very important. People seem to have not only more money to spend but also less time to spend it. This is refelcted in people’s habits and the things they buy. In the past, people would shop more often for staple food such as fruit, vegetable, meat and bread, they would buy these in local shops where they lived. Today many families have a big freezer at home so they usually shop in the big supermarket a lot of good at once so that they don’t have to go to the shop every day, they do a big shopping once a week.

Me and shopping

Food – I help/don’t help my parents

who usually does the shopping in my family
how often do we do the shopping and where
do I like buying food ?

Clothes

where do I usually buy clohthes?
I prefer big shopping malls to small boutiques ?
my favourite brand marks
is it pleasure for me?
How often do I buy clothes?
Who pays for it?

Talk about advertisements

Advertisement = a picture, set of words, or a short film which is intended to persuade people to buy a product or use a service.

The purpose of advertisement

to promote the latest products (e.g.new toys, new fashion trends, new DVD/CDs etc.)
to help people to choose the service which is the most suitable for them (e.g. bank products such as bank account, loans, mortgages etc.)
to persuade people to buy a product which is nto very good, it is not sold sufficiently
to inform people about the discounts, sales, cheap flight tickets, cheap holidays etc.
to increase the sale of goods
to inform about the coming films, shows, TV programmes

The influence of advertisements on people

positive
- help them to buy the latest products
- people can learn about new medicaments (sprays, creams, ointments, drops, tablets etc.)
negative
- not all advertised product are of the quality which is promoted so people can feel dissapointed, cheated, they can found the product as a waste of money (usually old people believe the adverts and buy it)
- children are trustful so they believe the adverts and then they can be disappointed and upset because the toy doesn’t work the same way as it was shown in the advert.
- adverts are usually annoying because on the commercial channels adverts are incorporated into the films and there are too many adverts so each film is interrupted by a lot of adverisements.

Spending free time in malls

Shopping malls vs individual (small) shops

Shopping mall

pros – so many products under one roof (baker’s, greengrocer’s, newsagent’s, banks, ironmonger, music shop, clothes shop, shoe shop, bookshop, chemist’s, etc.)
- wide range of products
- cheaper products
- big car park (it is not necessary to carry bags)
- cinemas, caffes, restaurant, place for children (the possibility to eat, to have fun)
cons – supermarkets – we have to watch the quality (not always the goods of good quality are sold)
- long queues (queuing = a waste of time)
- eye – catching shelves – people usually more than they intend = people spent more money (sweets near the cash desks=children want it)
- crowde, too many people

Small shops

they cannot compete the supermarkets (cannot afford such a wide range of products – not enough space, higher prices)
pros: elderly people – they can’t travel, they don’t need so much goods, for them the local shop is convenient
- better quality of products