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Bob: They are very nice! You have prepared gifts for all my relatives! I do appreciate your care.

Oleg: It’s time to go to the airport. My dad will give us a ride. It’s a pity the way is too short to have enough time to talk.

(Three hours later)

Oleg: Bob knows what he is doing. This book is a great research work about phenomena made in America. It’s about inventions and innovations, which changed the world.

Lena: How can it help our business?

Oleg: It’s also about the success those inventors and innovators achieved in their business. Take and read it. No doubt, this book will work for us.

Ex. 3. Read the texts and translate them from English into Russian.

Text I. First Department Stores

In 1846, an Irish immigrant, Alexander Stewart opened a business in New York and gave the world a new phenomenon: the department store. He brought together an unprecedented range of goods in a single enterprise called the Marble Dry-Goods Palace. The business thrived. Soon it covered a whole block on Broadway and had a staff of two thousand. But in 1862, Stewart relocated to an eight-story building, and in so doing he made the largest retail operation in the world.

Stewart renamed his business A.T. Stewart’s Cast-Iron Palace. It was not an exaggeration. His new establishment, like scores of other similar emporia appeared in Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia and New York, offered levels of comfort, luxury, and excitement previously unknown to consumers. The development of castiron architecture allowed the construction of more open interiors. These new stores were airy and spacious. The increasing prosperity of Americans gave urban shoppers an opportunity to experience, consume and spend a whole day there. Safety passenger elevators, electric lighting, public telephones, and escalators made shopping more convenient. Limitless services of the department stores, as hair salons, first-aid stations, information bureaus, in-store radio stations, lost-and-found departments, even silence rooms for nerve-tired shoppers and branch libraries, were free of charge. Tearooms and restaurants eliminated the need to go elsewhere for anything. As early as the 1850s these grand commercial enterprises were entertaining customers with

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fashion shows, organ recitals, demonstrations of new products, put up lectures and plays.

Transforming the shopping experience for millions of urban Americans department stores introduced the idea of conspicuous consumption.

Text II. Harry G. Selfridge and Frank W. Woolworth’s Innovations

By 1900, these retail establishments had become the biggest employers. Marshall Field in Chicago had a staff of eight thousand. It was one of its staffers, Harry G. Selfridge, who was responsible for some innovations. This Wisconsin native took a job as a stock boy with Marshall Field in 1879 and quickly rose through the ranks. First, he took goods down from the high shelves and put them on counters and tables for customers to touch and peer at them, even to shoplift them. Among

Selfridge’s many other innovations were the now universal ones as annual sales, a bargain basement, gift certificates, the custom of keeping the ground-floor windows lighted at night and putting the perfumes and cosmetics department on the ground floor by the main entrance to sweeten the atmosphere and act as a magnet for passerby. Frank W. Woolworth developed the idea of the bargain basement as a sideline. But his bargain basement occupied a whole store in Utica, New York, in 1879. Woolworth generated money from otherwise unsellable goods – everything cost 5 or 10 cents. The store was so successful that, by 1900, Woolworth had had a fifty-nine store with annual sales of over $5 million. By 1913, he was rich enough to pay with cash for the construction of the $13.5 million Woolworth Building in New York.

Text III. Selling Goods by Mail

In the 1900s, America remained largely a rural country. So, for farm families and small-town folk to consume and possess, a former traveling salesman named Montgomery Ward hit on the idea of selling goods by mail. In 1872, he suggested the idea to a farming organization called the Grange. The Grange supplied the potential customers, and Ward provided the goods. Within a little over a decade, Ward’s catalogue had grown from a single sheet of paper to nearly ten thousand items. A long and lucrative partnership between Montgomery Ward and the Grange was a hit. The rural customers saw a new world of choice and possibility.

In 1886, Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck from Chicago formed a business partnership grown into a retail monolith that would dwarf the mighty Montgomery

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Ward. Sears, Roebuck & Cоoffered the same service as Montgomery Ward, but with greater flair. Its catalogues were livelier, products were cheaper, one could buy almost anything from a packet of thumbtacks to a house and all its furnishings from the company. By 1906, the Company had had two thousand workers to process the 900 sacks of orders each day. The post office, railroads and telegraph companies had to open branch offices at the Chicago headquarters.

Ex. 4. Answer the questions.

1.Who gave the world the first department store?

2.What is the difference between a usual store and a department store?

3.What did the first department stores offer?

4.Why were the department stores named so?

5.How was the shopping experience of urban Americans transformed by the department stores?

6.What conveniences, services and ways of increasing sales did the department stores offer?

7.Were scores of conveniences and services provided by the department stores so necessary for shoppers?

8.What innovations were offered by Harry G. Selfridge?

9.How could each of them increase sales?

10.Why did Frank W. Woolworth produce more profits from his bargain basement?

11.Where could rural Americans consume in the 1900s?

12.What did the process of buying goods by mail consist of?

13.How did Montgomery Ward and the farming organization Grange cooperate together and divide their responsibilities?

14.Why were Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck more successful than Montgomery Ward?

15.Why were rural and urban Americans provided with different ways of shopping?

16.Which innovations made in America in the 1880 – 1900s are being used in Russia nowadays?

17.Have you heard about other new ways of shopping (advertising; methods of attraction consumers)?

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Ex. 5. Find English equivalents to the following word combinations.

Оплатить наличными, «сельская» (деревенская, сельскохозяйственная) страна, подвал-магазин товаров по сниженным ценам, создать деловое партнерство, предприятия розничной торговли, деловое чутье, развитие железо-бетонной архитектуры, уровень роскоши, городские покупатели, штаб-квартира, неограниченные услуги, переехать в восьмиэтажное здание, уставшие и нервные покупатели, возможные потребители, уничтожить любое желание пойти кудалибо, подобные (похожие) большие магазины, филиал, беспрецедентный выбор (ассортимент) товаров, возрастающее благосостояние, разглядывать товары (покупки), обстановка дома, процветать, бесплатная услуга, идея широкого потребления, воздушный и просторный, продажа товаров по почте, коммерческое предприятие, подняться по карьерной лестнице, главный вход, новое явление, покупательский опыт, нововведение.

Ex. 6. Find Russian equivalents to the following word combinations.

Shopping, to rename the business, to consume and possess, more open interior, to entertain customers, a single enterprise, to introduce the idea, to dwarf, free of charge, a Wisconsin native, annual sales, dry goods, to take goods down from the shelves, a stock boy, a counter, a bargain basement, to cover a whole block, to shoplift, to cost 5 cents, to act as a magnet for a passerby, a packet of thumbtacks, the largest retail operation, to process orders, a gift certificate, an invention, a traveling salesman, scores of similar emporia, to suggest, a lucrative partnership, the world of choice and possibility, to be responsible for, to hit, to shoplift, to sweeten the atmosphere, to bargain.

Ex. 7. Look through the above texts and give extended answers to the questions.

1.How did Alexander Stewart’s invention change the shopping experience for millions of shoppers?

2.How do innovations influence business?

3.Does the idea of selling goods by mail remain popular among shoppers in the world?

4.Is it necessary to have a flair for commerce to be a success in business?

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Ex. 8. Focus on the material on Reported Speech. Translate the sentences from Russian into English.

1.Эмиль Золя говорил, что большие универмаги демократизируют роскошь.

2.Александр Стюарт сказал, что он совершил самую большую розничную операцию в мире.

3.Газеты уверяли, что Вулворт был более успешен в коммерческих делах.

4.Рекламные щиты сообщают, что в этом магазине всё стоит от пятидесяти до ста рублей.

5.Завтра хозяин проинформирует служащих, что универмаг откроется в мае.

6.Мы объяснили ему, что вчера целый час разглядывали витрину магазина, выбирая сумочки, поэтому не заметили его.

7.Автор доказывает, что бренд – американское явление.

8.Менеджер отдела маркетинга заявил, что духи и косметика подслащивают атмосферу всего первого этажа.

9.Каталоги настаивают, что товары стали дешевле, лучше и ярче.

10.Работник информационного бюро объявил, что через десять минут начнётся показ модной одежды.

11.Женщина заметила, что какой-то человек украл банку консервов в бакалейном отделе.

12.Моя подруга сказала, что купит новое платье и туфли на ежегодной распродаже в магазине «Маршалл Филд».

13.Управляющий подтвердит завтра, что кассира уволят.

14.Вчера покупатели спрашивали, появятся ли кожаные жакеты от Лоры Крезанти в сентябре.

15.Виктор Груен думал, понравится ли потребителям идея его магазинаякоря.

16.Радио прокричало, что до Рождества осталось десять дней и надо не забыть купить подарки.

Ex. 9. Give the definitions to the following word combinations:

A department store, a retail establishment, a headquarter, innovation, unsellable goods, selling goods by mail, a traveling salesman, a lucrative partnership, a branch office, dry goods, a potential customer, a bargain basement, conspicuous consumption, to