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7 Shop ’til you drop Are you a shopaholic? a) Pick one of the quotes below and explain its meaning. b) What do the three quotes have in common? c) How do/don’t they reflect your own attitude towards shopping? Reading: Shopping madness a) Read the text about special shopping days. First decide whether the statements (1–6) are true (T) or false (F) and put a cross ( ✘ ) in the correct box. Then identify the sentence in the text which supports your decision. Write the first four words of this sentence in the space provided. There may be more than one correct answer; write down only one. The first one (0) has been done for you. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the royalty of “shopping days” 1 The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one. Erma Bombeck (1927–1996, US writer) I like my money right where I can see it – hanging in my closet. (From the TV show Sex and the City ) A bargain is something you can’t use at a price you can’t resist. Franklin P. Jones (1908–1980, US reporter and humourist) 2 Fact file Black Friday Black Friday is used to describe a number of historical Fridays in which an event led to public chaos or disaster. Today, Black Friday is best known as the shopping day after Thanksgiving in the United Sates when retail stores generate their highest sales. Black refers to the account- ing term as a business moves from losses in red ink to gains in black ink. Cyber Monday Cyber Monday, the Monday following Thanksgiving in the US, is one of the busiest shopping days of the year for online retailers. Many retailers use Cyber Monday to kick off the holiday shopping season by offering special promotions. F There are the twelve days of Christmas and then there are all the other special days when you should be out there shopping. Maybe you don’t have them all on the calendar yet. On 20 November you are supposed to “show the love for your local businesses” by shopping at the shop round your corner. Still to come are also: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Cyber Black Friday and that perennial favourite Free Shipping Day. Whether or not any of these red-letter days matter is something that could stir a nice debate over a cup of hot chocolate and a pile of shopping bags. “There are only two that are meaningful in my opinion – Black Friday and Cyber Monday,” said Scott Silverman, co-founder and vice president of marketing for Ifeelgoods.com, a new company in Menlo Park, California, formed to work with retailers interested in virtual goods and social gaming. “The rest are ‘me too’ attempts to get press coverage or to build a shopping website business.” He has a point about Black Friday. While the name may not have been well known until the past decade or so, the day after Thanksgiving has long been a retail happening. What started out as a good time to get a jump on holiday shopping because everyone was off work has become a driver of the American economy. Over 140 million people are expected to spend money this year the weekend following Black Friday. Backed up by statistics, Silverman’s trade group created a CyberMonday.com website where retailers would share their deals. Last year, the site drew 15.8 million visitors, according to the retail federation. In 2006, the group reported about 300,000 visitors to the site. Despite the hype, Black Friday is not the busiest shopping day of the holiday season. That is typically the Saturday before Christmas – a shopping happening still without a cool name. FedEx Corp. expects to move a record 16 million shipments 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 82 Big money Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum d s Verlags öbv