Business The New Marketplace

Not too long ago, if you wanted a new briefcase, you would look for one in either a department store or a luggage shop. Today, you can just as easily make your purchase at a flea market, from a street vendor, from a mail-order catalog, from a direct mail offer, through a TV shopping service or via your computer shopping database.

Concerned about your health? Aside from your traditional annual physical and health-club membership, you can visit a spa, adopt one or more of the hundreds of do-it-yourself diets, utilize home exercise and diagnostic equipment, buy instructional videotapes, subscribe to any or all of the dozens of health magazines on the market, or consult a homeopath, a nutritionist, or any of dozens of nontraditional practitioners.

Consumers are increasingly seeking out new sources for goods and services; that is no longer news. What is news is that they are bypassing traditional delivery channels - corner drugstores, doctors' offices, the mass media - in their search for quality, savings, convenience, and personal fit in all products and services. This movement to cut out the traditional middleman, so to speak, is a part of a massive socioeconomic phenomenon known as disintermediation.

Disintermediation is fueled by people's intense and widening desire to be more in control. Most people occasionally feel helpless and victimized. But in the marketplace, you can be a king or a queen - your ability to choose gives you power.

What is behind this booming growth in the trend toward bypassing traditional markets? Time has become an important consumer issue. Growing numbers of working women, overworked executives and moon-lighters among the people are increasingly willing to pay more money for things that save their time. Companies that handle household chores such as gardening, auto maintenance, and housecleaning are proliferating. Food companies have lost billions of dollars to fast-food chains over the years and are trying to recapture these dollars by providing supermarkets with prepared meals. Door-to-door sales are being replaced by catalogs that consumers can thumb through at their convenience. The ability to deliver goods and services when and where the customer chooses is crucial to success in the new marketplace.

No wonder, that hundreds of new distribution channels and outlets are springing up every month, from discount stores and warehouses to upscale boutiques and home delivery, from specialty dealers to hypermarkets. And consumers have generally not only responded well to alternatives, they have come to expect and demand the diversity.

The proliferation of media, and of advertisements in media, has created a background of constant noise, out of which consumers increasingly select only those messages of direct interest to them. The consumer is no longer the passive recipient of advertising that marketers were used to in the past. Now, consumers control what gets through to them and what doesn't.

Today producers and sellers are competing in a mature, overstocked, intensely competitive environment where products and advertisements look too much alike - a serious problem in an increasingly splintered marketplace. With shelf space and consumers' attention at a premium, the shots are now being called not by the producer but by the consumer and by the distributor who is oriented to what is new.

In-home systems such as TV, computers, and catalogs provide portability of time and place, convenience of use, relaxation, solitude, and time saving. Out-of-store sales now account up to a third of all retail sales. To compete, stores must try to match the convenience and time saving offered by direct marketing. A major breakthrough before the end of the decade may be scanning systems that enable shoppers to check themselves out, thus avoiding the major disadvantage of in-store shopping - waiting on line to pay.

C o m m e n t s

vendor -	продавець, торговець
via -	через, за рахунок, за допомогою
spa [spa:] -	курорті мінеральними водами
middleman -	посередник
disintermediation -	відмовлення від посередництва
to handle -	робити
household chores -	вище номінальної вартості
to proliferate -	швидко рости
to recapture -	повертати
door-to-door sale -	продаж "від дверей до дверей" (коли торговельні агенти доставляють товари додому)
crucial -	надзвичайно важливий
discount store -	роздрібний магазин, що торгує за зниженими цінами
warehouse -	великий магазин-склад роздрібної торгівлі
boutique [bu:'ti:k] -	дорогий модний магазин, бутік
specialty -	спеціальний асортимент
hypermarket -	гігантський супермаркет з відділом знижених у ціні товарів, торговельний комплекс
overstocked -	затоварений
at a premium -	вищої побутової послуги
to call a shot -	викликати поштовх
solitude -	самота
to account up to -	досягати
direct marketing -	пряма покупка
on line -	у черзі

Task 5. .Answer the questions.

1. What does the new marketplace mean?

2. Why are consumers bypassing traditional delivery channels now?

3. What is disintermediation fueled by?

4. What are the four main factors of bypassing traditional mar­kets?

5. What are the prospects for the future market?

6. What's your own opinion of the subject?

Task 6. Find in the text English equivalents of the following Rus­sian word combinations:

товкучка, поштове замовлення по каталозі, товари - поштою, телемагазин, комп'ютерна база даних товарів, дієта "зроби сам", народні цілителі, канали постачань, особиста компетентність, перевантажений роботою службовець, відхід за автомобілем, мережа ресторанів швидкого обслуговування, усе більш дробящий ринок, продаж поза магазином.

Task 7. Match the synonyms.

1. vendor	a. privacy
2. spa	b. decisive
3. to utilize	c. to regain
4. to seek out	d. to increase
5. to bypass	e. resort
6. middleman	f. merchant
7. to proliferate	g. to use
8. to recapture	h. to look for
9. crucial	i. to miss
10. solitude	j. agent

Task 8. Substitute the following definitions with the words in the box.

retailer discount store

mail-order selling boutique

chain hypermarket

door-to-door sale middleman

1. businessman who buys from the manufacturer and sells to the public

2. taking orders and supplying a product by post

3. series of stores belonging to the same company

4. going from one house to the next, asking the dwellers to buy something

5. shop which specializes in cheap goods

6. small shop selling articles (clothes, cosmetics, hats, etc.) of the latest fashion

7. very large supermarket, usually on the outside of a city or a town

8. person who sells small quantities of goods direct to the general public

Task 9. Choose the right meaning of the words in bold type; translate the sentences into Russian.

1. What is news is that they are bypassing traditional delivery channels:

а) зневажати;

b) уникати;

с) не брати до уваги.

2. Most people occasionally feel helpless and victimized:

а) скривджений;

b) обійдений;

с) обманутий.

3. Time has become an important consumer issue:

а) питання;

b) вихід;

с) проблема.

4. Door-to-door sales are being replaced by catalogs that con sumers can thumb through at their convenience:

а) поглянути;

b) переглянути;

с) перевернути сторінку.

5. Consumers have generally not only responded well to alternatives, they have come to expect and demand the diversity:

а) відмінність;

b) розмаїтість;

с) строкатість.

6. The consumer is no longer the passive recipient of advertising that marketers were used to in the past:

а) споживач;

b) слухач;

с) одержувач.

7. A major breakthrough before the end of the decade may be scanning systems that enables shoppers to check themselves out:

а) досягнення;

b) настання;

с) проривши.

Task 10. Compose a brief essay (approximately 100 words) on one of the following topics; use the words in brackets.

1. Shopping for professional services.

(storefront dentistry, optometry, hearing specialists, foot doctors, legal services, divorce consultants, will-preparers, self diagnostic machinery, chiropractors, acupuncturists, midwives, health - care providers, home-diagnostic equipment and testing, drug advertising, do -it- yourself books for medical, accounting, and legal affairs)

2. Getting global experience at home.

(foreign delicacies, cultural artifacts (arts, crafts, clothing), simulating ethnic and foreign environments, virtual reality, mind-altering techniques).