Information about Shopping

For the song by Bran Van 3000, see Shopping (song).

Shopping is the examining of goods or services from retailers with intent to purchase. Shopping is the activity of selection and/or purchase. In some contexts it is considered a leisure activity as well as an economic one.

Shopping in ancient societies

Shopping can be traced back to many civilizations in history. In ancient Rome, there was Trajan's Market with tabernas that served as retailing units. Shopping list are known to be used by Romans as one was discovered by Hadrian's wall dated back 75-125 AD written for a soldier.[1]

Participants

The shopper

To many it is considered a recreational activity in which one visits a variety of stores in search of a suitable product to purchase. Window shopping is an activity that shoppers engage in by browsing though glass windows of a shop for entertainment. Sometimes they like what they see and might try on the item(s) or imagine purchasing these items without actually purchasing, possibly just to pass the time between other activities, or planning a purchase.

To some, shopping is a task of inconvenience and vexation. Shoppers sometimes go though great lengths to wait in long lines to buy popular products as typically observed with early adopters shoppers and holiday shoppers. Sometimes buyers feel ripoff-ed because they did not get what they paid for often asking for a refund. Sometimes shoppers get caught up in a scam.

More recently compulsive shopping has been recognized as an addiction. Commonly referred as compulsive shopping, shopping addiction, shopoholic or formally oniomania, these shoppers have an impulsive uncontrollable need to go shopping to get a rush or high.

The merchant

Sellers of products come by various names. They may be called vendors, merchants, salesman.

Shopping venues

Shopping hubs

A larger commercial zone can be found in city downtown or Arab city souk. Shopping hubs, or shopping centers, are collection of stores that is a grouping of several businesses. Typical examples include shopping malls, town squares, flea markets, and bazaars.

Stores

Shops are divided into multiple categories of stores which sell a selected set of goods or services. Usually they are tiered by target demographic based on the amount disposable income of the shopper. They can be tiered from cheap to pricey.

Some shops sell second-hand goods. Often the public can also sell goods to such shops. In other cases, especially in the case of a nonprofit shop, the public donates goods to the shop to be sold though thrift stores in the USA, charity shops in the UK. In give-away shops goods can be taken for free. In antique shops, the public can find goods that are older and harder to find. Sometimes people are broke and borrow money from a pawn shop using an item of value as collateral. College students are known to resell books back though college textbook bookstores. Old used items are often distributed though surplus stores.

Many shops are part of a shopping chain that carry the same trademark (company name) and logo using the same branding, same presentation, and sell the same products but in different locations. The shops may be owned by one company, or there may be a franchising company that has franchising agreements with the shop owners often found in relation to restaurant chains.

Various types of retail stores that specialize in the selling of goods related to a theme include bookstores, candy shops, liquor stores, gift shops, hardware stores, hobby stores, pet stores, pharmacys, sex shops, supermarkets.

Other stores such as big-box stores, hypermarkets, convenience stores, department stores, general stores, dollar stores sell a wider variety of products not horizontally related to each other.

Travel agency is example of a store that sells services.

Home shopping

With modern technology such as television and telephone and the Internet, users could be described as home shopping though online retail stores. Electronic commerce and business-to-consumer electronic commerce systems in combination of home mail delivery systems make this possible. Typically a consumer could make purchases though online shopping, shopping channels, mail order, etc. Sometimes peddlers and ice cream trucks pass though the neighborhoods offering services and goods. Also, neighborhood shopping takes place though various garage sales found in United States.

Shopping time

shopping time is anytime, when the stores are closed, go online. watch tv go on your cell phone and look at magazines. make sure to always look at the shipping time and price, because thats when shopping outside of the stores starts to get expensive. make sure to always spend moeny wisely. see money. some countries and stores don't open on a certain day for religous politcal or economical reasons. see reasons.

Regulation

Some business have shopping hours are open 24 hours 7 days-a-week. Some nations regulate the operation of businesses for religious reasons and do not allow shopping on particular days or dates.

Shopping seasons

Shopping seasons are periods where a burst of spending occurs typically near holidays in the United States, where Christmas shopping is the biggest shopping spending season. Some famous target dates are Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Some religions regard such spending seasons against their religion and dismiss the practice. Many question the over-commercialization and the response by stores who downplay the shopping season often cited in the Christmas controversy or War on Christmas.

Pricing and negotiation

The pricing technique used by most retailers is cost-plus pricing. This involves adding a markup amount (or percentage) to the retailers cost. Another common technique is manufacturers suggested list pricing. This simply involves charging the amount suggested by the manufacturer and usually printed on the product by the manufacturer.

In Western countries, retail prices are often so-called psychological prices or odd prices: a little less than a round number, e.g. $ 6.95. In Chinese societies, prices are generally either a round number or sometimes some lucky number. This creates price points.

Often prices are fixed and displayed on signs or labels. Alternatively, there can be price discrimination for a variety of reasons. The retailer charges higher prices to some customers and lower prices to others. For example, a customer may have to pay more if the seller determines that he or she is willing to. The retailer may conclude this due to the customer's wealth, carelessness, lack of knowledge, or eagerness to buy.

Price discrimination can lead to a bargaining situation often called haggling, a negotiation about the price. Economists see this as determining how the transaction's total surplus will be divided into consumer and producer surplus. Neither party has a clear advantage, because the threat of no sale exists, whence the surplus vanishes for both.

In popular culture

There was a television shopping game show called Shop 'Til You Drop.

The Pet Shop Boys wrote a song called "Shopping" for their 1987 album Actually. It takes the totally consumerist approach many shoppers have, and turns it into a satire on the privatisation culture of Britain in the 1980s.

In the Gilmore Girls fourth season episode "Scene in a Mall," a significant part of the episode is devoted to window shopping, which is Lorelai and Rory's main plan for the day.

In the famous shopping quote by Bo Derek, "whoever said money can't by happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping."

Internet shopping bargain aggregation sites such as have become a favorite shopping channel for busy people. Hundreds of merchant sites are reviewed for favorable pricing. Coupons for reduced pricing or free shipping are presented with the item which help deliver additional value to the shoppers.

References

1. ^ Roman shopping list deciphered. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (2001-03-05). Retrieved on 2007-09-23.
A good or commodity in economics is any object or service that increases utility, directly or indirectly, not to be confused with good in a moral or ethical sense (see Utilitarianism and consequentialist ethical theory).
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Service can refer to:
  • Public services, services carried out with the aim of providing a public good
  • A penetrant, as defined by a building code
  • Service (Systems Architecture), the provision of a discrete business or technology function within a systems environment; i.

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Retailing consists of the sale of goods or merchandise, from a fixed location such as a department store or kiosk, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser.[1] Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery.
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Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both. Trade is also called commerce. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and services.
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selection. Under selection, individuals with advantageous or "adaptive" traits tend to be more successful than their peers reproductively--meaning they contribute more offspring to the succeeding generation than others do.
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Purchasing refers to a business or organization attempting to acquire goods or services to accomplish the goals of the enterprise. Though there are several organizations that attempt to set standards in the purchasing process, processes can vary greatly between organizations.
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Leisure or free time, is a period of time spent out of work and essential domestic activity. It is also the period of discretionary time before or after compulsory activities such as eating and sleeping, going to work or running a business, attending school and doing
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economy is the system of human activities related to the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area.

The composition of a given economy is inseparable from technological evolution, civilization's history and social
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Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea.
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Trajan's Market (Mercatus Traiani) is a large complex of ruins in the city of Rome, located on the Via dei Fori Imperiali, at the opposite end to the Colosseum. The buildings and structures present a living model of life in the Roman capital and a glimpse at the
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A taberna (the plural form is tabernae) is a single room shop covered by a barrel vault within great indoor markets of ancient Rome. Each taberna had a window above it to let light into a wooden attic for storage and has a wide doorway.
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A shopping list is a list of items to be purchased by a shopper. Consumers often compile a shopping list of groceries to purchase on the next visit to the grocery store. The list may be compiled immediately before the shopping trip or incrementally as shopping needs arise through
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Hadrian's Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of modern-day England. It was the second of three such fortifications built across Great Britain, the first being Gask Ridge and the last the Antonine Wall.
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1st century BC - 1st century - 2nd century
40s  50s  60s  - 70s -  80s  90s  100s
72  73  74  - 75 -  76  77  78 
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2nd century - 3rd century
90s  100s  110s  - 120s -  130s  140s  150s
122 123 124 - 125 - 126 127 128
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AD and Ad may refer to:
  • Anno Domini, Latin for "In the Year of (Our) Lord", applied to years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars following 1 BC
  • Advertisement, the promotion of an item, service, company, and/or idea

Media and culture


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Product may mean:
  • Product (biology), something manufactured by an organelle
  • Product (business), an item that ideally satisfies a market's want or need
  • Product (chemistry), a substance found at the end of a chemical reaction

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Diffusion is the process by which a new idea or new product is accepted by the market. The rate of diffusion is the speed that the new idea spreads from one consumer to the next.
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A ripoff (or rip-off) is a bad deal. Usually it refers to an incident in which a person pays too much for something. A ripoff is distinguished from a scam in that a scam involves wrongdoing such as fraud; a ripoff, on the other hand, is in the eye of the beholder.
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Refund redirects here. For tax-related, see tax refund.


A money back guarantee is essentially a simple guarantee that, if a buyer is not satisfied with a product or service, a refund will be made.
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confidence trick or confidence game, also known as a con, scam, swindle, grift, bunko or flim flam, is an attempt to swindle a person or persons (known as the "mark") which involves gaining his or her confidence.
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An addiction is a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences to the individuals health, mental state or social life.
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Oniomania (from Greek onios = "for sale" : coined by German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin) also known as shopping addiction or shopaholism, is the compulsive desire to shop.
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Supplier may refer to:
  • Manufacturer, uses tools and labor to make things for sale
  • Processor (manufacturing), converts it from one form to another
  • Packager (manufacturing), encloses products for distribution, storage, sale, and use

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Merchants function as professionals who deal with trade, dealing in commodities that they do not produce themselves, in order to produce profit.

Merchants can be of two types:
  1. A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant.

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Salesman can refer to one of the following:
  • a person in the sales occupation
  • Salesman (1969 movie)

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worldwide view.


Zoning is a term used in urban planning for a system of land-use regulation in various parts of the world, including North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
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Downtown (called a "city centre" in British English) is a term used in North America when referring to a city's core, usually both in a geographical and commercial / community sense.
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A souk (سوق, also sook, souq, or suq) is a highly fashioned caravan. In Modern Standard Arabic the term refers to markets in both the physical and abstract economic sense (e.g.
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