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I would like to tell you about shopping in the United Kingdom.Marks & Spencer is Britain's favourite store. Tourists love ittoo. It attracts a great variety of customers from house wives tomillionaires. Princess Diana, Dustin Hoffman and the BritishPrime-minister are just a few of its famous customers. Last yearit made a profit of 529 million pounds, which is more than 10million a week.
It all started 105 years ago when a young Polish immigrantMichael Marks had a stall in Leeds market. He didn't have manythings to sell: some cotton, a little wool, lots of buttons and afew shoelaces. Above his stall he put the now famous notice:"Don't ask how much - it's a penny." Ten years later he met TomSpencer and together they started Penny stalls in many towns inthe North of England. Today there are 564 brances of Marks &Spencer all over the world: in America, Canada, Spain, France,Belguim and Hungary.
The store bases its business on 3 principles: good price,good quality and good service. Also, it changes with the times;once it was all jumpers and knickers. Now it sells food, furnitureand flowers as well. Top fashion designers advice on styles ofclothes. Perhaps, the most important key to its success is itshappy well-trained staff. Conditions of work are excellent. Thereare company doctors, dentists, hairdressers, etc. And all thestaff can have lunch for less than 40 pence.
Suprisingly tastes about food and clothes are international.What sells well in Paris, sells just as well in Newcastle andMoscow. Their best selling clothes are: for women - jumpers andknickers (M & S is famous for its knickers); for men - shirts,socks, pyjamas, dressing gowns and suits; for children -underwear and socks. Best sellers in food include: freshchickens, vegetables and sandwiches, "Chicken Kiev" isinternationally the most popular convience food. Shopping inBritain is also famous for its Freshfood. Freshfood is a chain offood stores and very successful supermarkets which has growntremendously in the twenty years since it was founded, and now ithas branches in the High Streets of all the towns of any size inBritain. In the beginning the stores sold only foodstuffs, but inrecent years they have diversified enormously and now sellclothes, books, records, electrical and domestic equipment. Thesuccess of the chain has been due to an enterprising managmentand to attractive layout and display in the stores. It has beendiscovered that impulse buying accounts for almost 35 per cent ofthe total turn over of the stores. The stores are organizedcompletly for self-service and customers are encouraged to wanderaround the spaciously laid out stands. Special free gifts andreduced prices are used to tempt customers into the stores andthey can't stand the temptation.
