A.

Spending money: Shopping

The British are not very adventurous shoppers. They like reliability and buy
brand- name goods wherever possible; preferably with the price clearly marked
(they are not very keen on haggling over prices). It is therefore not surprising
that a very high proportion of the country’s shops are branches of chain stores.
The British do not demand art in their shop windows. In general, they have been
rather slow to take on the idea that shopping might actually be fun.

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, supermarkets began moving out of
town, became bigger, turning in to 'hypermarkets' stocking a wider variety of
items. For example, most of them now sell alcoholic drinks, which are
conventionally bought at shops called 'off-licences'. They also sell petrol and
some items traditionally found in chemists and newsagents.

An exception is the first warehouse shopping club in Europe, opened in 1993 in

Essex by the American company Costco. Here, 'members' (who have paid a
small fee) can find almost everything that a shopper could ever want to buy at a
reduced price. In 1980, only 5% of shop sales took place in European. In 1994,
this figure had jumped to 25%.

- The area in town where the local shops are concentrated is known as the
high street. A few small shops are owned by local people. Most are owned by
national 'chains' of stores.
- Away from the town centre, a shop by itself in a residential area referred
to as “the corner shop” providing groceries to local customers.

Some types of Shops in England

Department Stores: including large retail stores with many goods and
services but they are quite expensive
 Marks & Spencer (for clothes and food)
 Debenhams and John Lewis and British Home Stores (for clothes and
household items),
 Boots (for toiletries)
 WHSmith (newsagents, stationers, Cds and DVDs).
Harrods’s - the famous department store that every tourist wants to visit.
Chain stores are groups of retail stores engaged in the same general field of
business that operate under the same ownership or management.
Off-license (sometimes known as off-sales or office) is a term used in the
United Kingdom and Ireland for a shop licensed to sell alcoholic beverages for
consumption off the premises, as opposed to a bar or public house which is
licensed for consumption at the point of sale (on-license). Off-licenses typically
are specialist shops, convenience stores, parts of supermarkets, or attached to
bars and pubs. Prices are usually substantially lower than in bars or pubs.
The corner shop: A shop by itself in a resident area is often reflected to as a
corner shop. These sometime sell various kinds of food, but they are not always
general grocers. In the last few decades, many corner shops have been taken
over by people from southern Asia who have delighted the neighborhood by
staying open very long hour.
Showrooms, shopping centre, charity shops, chain store, warehouses,
supermarket and so on.

B. Shop opening hours:

* Depend on the type of business and the location:

The normal time for shops to open is nine in the morning.

Large out- of-town supermarkets stay open all day until about eight 0 ' clock.
Most small shops stay open all day and then close at half-past five or a bit later.

=> Nowadays, shop opening hours have become more varied:

- Hypermarkets and superstores are open from Monday to Saturday, from

around 6:00 or 7:00 am till 10:00 or 11:00 pm.

* Sunday Shopping: Refer to the ability of retailers to operate stores on

Sunday.
Sunday shopping or Sunday trading refers to the ability of retailers to operate stores
on Sunday, a day that Christian tradition typically recognises as a day of rest

By the early I990S many shops, including chain stores, were opening on some
Sundays. especially in the period before Christmas.

- A group of people from various Christian churches and trade unions. They
argued that Sunday should be special, a day of rest, a day for all the family to be
together.

- In 1993 Parliament voted on the mayer. By a small majority, the idea of a

complete 'free-for-all ' was defeated

- In 1994, the Sunday Trading act permitted:

+ Large shops to open for up to six hours on Sunday between the hours of 10am
and 4pm.
+ Small shops with an area of below 280 square metres, free to set the own
Sunday trading times.
British
General - The fifth largest economy in - The 37th largest economy
economy the world
GDP GDP per capital of $46,344
(World Bank data)
Labor force by
- Agriculture: 1.5%, Industry:
occupation
18.8% and services: 79.9%
Unemployment
Rate - 5% ( 3/2021)
- Public debt: 85.4% of GDP
Public finances (2019) and Revenues: 38.9% of
GDP (2019). Expenses: 41.0%
GDP (2019).
Investment - Rich and diverse market, creative
and innovative. Trading Union
- The Britist are not
Spending
money: adventurous shoppers. They like
Shopping reliability and buy brand – name
goods wherever possible.
Preference to buy brand name
goods in almost chain stores,
supermarkets or malls
Viet Nam
in the world
- GDP per capital of
$10,755 (World Bank
data)
- Agriculture: 40.3%.
Industry: 25.7% and
services: 34%
- 2.62% (7/2021)
- Public debt: 46.70%
GDP (2020). Revenues:
$67.944 billion.
Expenses: $17.086
billion
- Fast growth,
inexpensive labor cost,
good competition
environment
- Many people are likely to
buy cheap products in
markets.
Often to bargain price:
might bargain the prices
down to as much as two
thirds of the original cost.
* Huge change to opening hours for every shop in England when lockdown
ends:

Shops will be able to stay open until 10pm six days a week when they reopen in
April after months of closures, the government has announced.

The communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, said the extended opening hours on
Monday to Saturday would help shoppers return to high streets safely when
non-essential shops are permitted to reopen in England from 12 April.

The government has also announced it will extend flexible working hours on
construction sites, and allow food deliveries to supermarkets over more time
periods. Other measures include keeping the flexibility for pubs and restaurants
to put up marquees to help increase seating capacity in a Covid-secure way.