Self-service

This is not normal shopping in that it obviates the need for personal attendance on the customer while making it necessary for the customer to conform to three conditions.

She must:

(1) Enter the shop through one door and leave it through another.

(2) Carry a basket or push a trolley, either of which is handed to her on entering. In some stores the customer is also required to deposit her own bag or basket on enter­ing and to reclaim it when she gets back to the check-out. [...]

(3) Pass through a check-out, where she makes one pay­ment for all her purchases which are then transferred to her own basket.

The development of the self-service system of retailing in this country [i. e. Great Britain] has made it necessary to give attention to the pre-packing of food products that have hitherto been displayed unwrapped and often in bulk. These products, now being put up in consumer packs and for the first time sold under proprietary brand names in the same way as manufactured commodities, are fresh fruit, vegeta­bles, butcher's meat, poultry and wet fish.¹ [...]

Almost solely responsible for the Initiation and development of pre-packaging of fresh produce, the larger self-service stores, some of which areknown is supermarkets, have, by both example and demand, popularized the Siteof these new supplies of ready-wrapped produce, severalof these new food outlets introduced their own pre-packaging departments on their own premises. By demand, because, by tackling this new venture enthusiastically, and display­ing these unfamiliar packs attractively, clearly price-marked, easily picked up and generally under refrigerated conditions they have already caused thousands of house­wives to buy by this method.

(A.E. Hammond. Packaging and Display Encyclopaedia)

NOTE

¹ By wet fish is normally meant the various kinds of white fish, such as cod, halibut, hake, plaice, sole, turbot and whiting, and others such as herring, normally sold from the fishmonger's slab, and not including shell-fish or smoked fish such as haddock and kippers, or quick-frozen fish.

EXERCISES

I. (a) Quote the sentences where the combinations pick up, put up and fetch and carry are met with and learn these sentences by heart.

(b) Say it in English

Самообслуживание; покупатель; товар; прилавок; чек; касса; покупки; расфасованные товары.

II. (a) Answer the following questions:

I. Do you rememberwhen self-service was first introduced into our shops? 2.What do you think were the reasons for the introduction of the new system? 3. How are self-service shops organized? 4.Can we take the wares displayed in self-service shops in our hands or are these displays of the "Don't touch" kind? 5. Instead of the traditional Cashier's Desk most self-service shops have Payment Desks which are called: Sales Desk, Cashier-Wrapper Desk, Desk for Wrapping and Payment, Service Desk. Do you think these are different names or differ­ent things? 6. What is the difference between self-service and self-selection?

III. Situations for dramatizing:

1. A big self-service shop on the day after stock-taking. The senior shop-assistants of all departments tell the chief about its results.

2. A supporter of the self-service system is arguing with its critic.

Make use of the vocabulary of the text and of the following word-combinations: to reduce the cost of staff; to make shopping easier; to select one's merchandise without assistance; to make a selection with a minimum of help; to control pilferage and soilage.

IV. Retell the following text:

The extent to which selling has been shifted from clerk to customer varies widely in different stores and in different departments in the same store. At one extreme, the customer merely starts to select unaided;at the other,all of the transaction is on a self-service basis.

All such systems have beenloosely termed self-selection,but many other names have been used. One storecalls its system modified selling. The customeris given the usual helpuntil the sale is made and then is directed to a special deskto make payment.

In modified self-service the customer selects the goods without help, but must find a salesperson in order to pay for the goods. Simplified selling is the name given by some store to a plan involving customary procedures but depending on improved displays and signs to encourage the customer to start selecting.

Some of the other names coined are streamlined selling, fast selection, easy selection, preselection, quick service, semi-self-service, and visual merchandising.

(E. H. Hawkins and С. Е. Wolf Jr. Merchandise Display, 1946)

V. Discuss the problem: Self-service as a means of education.

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