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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

Passers-by are reflected in a clothing store window with a discount sign in Marseille, France.

To some people, shopping is considered a recreational and diversional activity in which one visits a variety of stores with a premeditated intent to purchase a product. To others, shopping is a task of inconvenience and vexation.

Let's take a look at how the world shops.

TEXT: Courtesy, Wikipedia

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

A woman carries a shopping bag from Macy's department store as she walks along 34th street in New York City.

Fairs and markets have a long history that started when man felt the need to exchange goods. People would shop for goods at a weekly market in nearby towns.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

A mannequin of late US actress Marilyn Monroe is seen in a shop window Nice, France.

Then shops began to be permanently established. Shops were specialized , e.g. a bakery, a butchery, a grocer. Then supermarkets appeared.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

Discount signs are displayed in a clothing store window in Strasbourg, France.

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

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

A woman carries shopping bags in Strasbourg, France.

Many shops are part of a shopping centre that carry the same trademark (company name) and logo using the same branding, same presentation, and sell the same products but in different locations.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

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A shopper holds her purchases as she walks down the street at Herald Square in New York.

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.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

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A woman passes a sign saying 'All Stock Must Go' in Croydon, London.

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

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

Shoppers use escalators inside a shopping mall in Singapore.

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.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

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A combination of nine photographs shows a variety of sale signs in Oxford Street, central London.

Shopping frenzies are periods of time where a burst of spending occurs - typically near holidays in the United States, with Christmas shopping being the biggest shopping spending season, starting as early as October and continuing until after Christmas.

Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

A woman sleeps after shopping during 'Black Friday' sales at the Dadeland Mall in Miami.

Some religions regard such spending seasons as being against their faith and dismiss the practice. Many question the over-commercialisation and the response by stores that downplay the shopping season.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

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Shoppers carry bags on Princes Street in Edinburgh.

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.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

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People are reflected on a shop window in Seville, Spain.

In Western countries, retail prices are often 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.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

Customers look for shoes at a market in Hefei, east China's Anhui province.

Often, prices are fixed and 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 economic surplus will be divided between consumers and producers.

Neither party has a clear advantage because the threat of no sale exists, in which case the surplus would vanish for both.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

Shoppers fill Regent Street in central London.

A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area - a modern, indoor version of the traditional marketplace.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

A woman walks past a shop window displaying 'sale' signs on Oxford Street in central London.

Modern "car-friendly" strip malls developed from the 1920s, and shopping malls corresponded with the rise of suburban living in many parts of the Western World, especially the United States, after World War II.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

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A store front window is covered with the world 'sale' at retail clothing shop in London.

From early on, the design tended to be inward-facing, with malls following theories of how customers could best be enticed in a controlled environment.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

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Women carry shopping bags as they look at a window display of a jewellery shop in central Paris.

Similar, the concept of a mall having one or more "anchor" or "big box" stores was pioneered early, with individual stores or smaller-scale chain stores intended to benefit from the shoppers attracted by the big stores.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

A shopper is reflected in a shoe shop window in downtown Rome.

In most of the places the term shopping centre is used, especially in Europe, Australia and South America; however shopping mall is also used, predominantly in North America and the Philippines.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

A woman walks past a shop in central London.

In North America, the term shopping mall is usually applied to enclosed retail structures (and is generally abbreviated to simply mall), while shopping centre usually refers to open-air retail complexes; both types of facilities usually have large parking lots, face major traffic arterials and have few pedestrian connections to surrounding neighbourhoods.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

Customers use the escalators at a shopping centre in central Sydney.

Shopping centres in the United Kingdom can be referred to as shopping centres or shopping precincts. The standard British pronunciation of the word mall rhymes with pal, as in The Mall, London - the tree-lined avenue leading to Buckingham Palace, London.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

Shoppers pass sales signs in shop windows in Oxford Street, London.

Mall can refer to either a shopping mall - a place where a collection of shops all adjoin a pedestrian area - or an exclusively pedestrianised street that allows shoppers to walk without interference from vehicle traffic.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

Shoppers sit outside a retail store in Oxford Street in central London.

Mall is generally used in North America to refer to a large shopping area usually composed of a single building which contains multiple shops, usually "anchored" by one or more department stores surrounded by a parking lot.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

Women look at displays in a H&M store in Tokyo's Ginza shopping district.

The term arcade is more often used, especially in Britain, to refer to a narrow pedestrian-only street, often covered or between closely spaced buildings.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

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The majority of British shopping centres are located in city centres, usually found in old and historic shopping districts and surrounded by subsidiary open air shopping streets.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

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Consumers look at shoes on display at a shop in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China.

The MetroCentre, in Gateshead (near Newcastle upon Tyne), is the largest shopping centre in Europe with over 330 shops, 50 restaurants and an 11 screen cinema and Westfield London is the largest inner-city shopping centre in Europe.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

A woman walks by a shop with discount signs announcing summer sales in Paris.

Bullring, Birmingham, is the busiest shopping centre in the United Kingdom welcoming over 36.5 million shoppers in its opening year.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

Shoppers wait for the doors to open on the first day of the Harrods sale in London.

In Hong Kong, the term "shopping centre" is the most frequently used, and the name of a shopping centre in Hong Kong usually contains the word "centre" or "plaza".

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

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A man looks at a window display of jewellery on Grafton Street, Dublin.

The same is true for Portuguese-speaking Brazil, though with American spelling shopping center.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

A woman pulls shopping carts in Torrington, Connecticut.

The largest mall ever is South China Mall in Dongguan, China with gross floor area of 9,600,000 sq ft. The world's second-largest shopping mall is the Golden Resources Mall in Beijing, China with gross floor area of 7,300,000 sq ft.

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Amazing images reveal business of shopping

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 08:49 IST

Shoppers walk along on Oxford Street in London.

The SM City North EDSA in the Philippines, which opened in November 1985, is the world's third-largest at 5,000,000 sq ft of gross floor area, and SM Mall of Asia in the Philippines, opened in May 2006, is the world's fourth largest at 4,150,000 sq ft of gross floor area.