Answer the following questions.
1) Why is it possible to compare a trip to the supermarket with an exercise in psychological warfare?
2) What is “swarm intelligence”?
3) How do supermarkets encourage shoppers to buy things they didn’t realize they wanted?
4) How can supermarkets play on the herd instinct?
5) Is it possible to increase sales using smart-cart technology?
6) What are the advantages of the “swarm-moves” model?
7) Is this model used widely nowadays?
8) What shops are interested in the model?
9) How do some shops in Japan and a company in the USA increase their sales?
10) Is the usage of the herd instinct psychology potent on the Internet?
Read the text again and make four true sentences.
| 1) Expensive products placed at eye level … 2) Selling only the most popular items in each product category … 3) Placing milk and eggs at the end of the store … 4) If a customer knows that a certain product is popular … | a) … allows to increase the sales of a shop. b) … he is likely to buy it too c) … are sold better than cheaper but less visible goods. d) … makes people buy more goods on the way to these everyday items. |
VOCABULARY CHECK
1. Complete the sentences below with the correct form of these verbs:
to swarm, to exploit, to force, to enhance, to relay
1) His arguments … them to admit he was right.
2) Considerable research is devoted to … the taste and aesthetic appeal of today’s food.
3) The broadcasts were … by satellite.
4) The world economic system … the developing countries in favour of the developed ones.
5) As the fire spread, people came … out of the building.
Match the world with their definitions.
a store, an item, goods, a cart, a tag, a bar code, a discount, sales, a retailer, a shopkeeper, a customer
1) things that are produced in order to be sold;
2) a small piece of paper, plastic attached to something to show what it costs;
3) a single thing, especially one thing in a list, group, or set of things;
4) a reduction in the usual price of something;
5) a group of thin and thick lines printed on products you buy in a shop, and which a computer can read;
6) a place where goods are sold to the public;
7) a large wire basket on wheels that you use in a supermarket;
8) the total number of products that are sold during a particular period of time;
9) someone who owns or is in charge of a small shop;
10) someone who buys goods or services from a shop, company, etc;
11) a person or business that sells goods to customers in a shop.
Scan the text again and find the synonyms to the following words.
a store (Am E) – … (Br E)
a cart (Am E) – … (Br E)
a customer – …
