Page 32 - Book5E

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Become a Shopping Pro
There are many different places to choose from when you go out to shop. Department stores, malls, specialty shops, discount stores, and factory outlets are among the most popular. But don’t forget about some of your other options. Second-hand shops, flea markets, garage sales, and farmer’s markets can provide excellent alternatives for finding a great buy.
Many items are sold through the classified section of the newspaper. If you’re patient and willing to spend a little time each week perusing the ads, you’ll eventually find what you’re looking for. It’s not neces- sary to subscribe to the newspaper to see the ads. A visit to your local library will suffice. They have all the local newspapers. Grocery stores often have racks at the front of the store where you can pick up local classified ads for free.
People sell things by leaving notes on bulletin boards at work, at church, at the grocery store, at community stores, and on college bulletin boards. Don’t forget these places. You can sometimes get a real bargain!
Besides the actual physical locations you can go to shop, there are other ways of shopping. Mail-order catalogs have seen a growth in popularity in recent years, but the new, increasingly popular place to shop is the Internet, both for purchasing at individual stores or through auctions like eBay. There are advantages to shopping on the Internet—no pushy salespeople, no fighting the traffic, and you can shop at any hour of the day.
Internet retailers are becoming more and more savvy, however, and learning ways to tempt you to buy more than you planned. One of the largest and most successful is Amazon.com. They have been a leader in developing data collection systems that let them track what you purchase and use it to create a more expanded shopping experience for you. It has helped them develop a truly loyal customer database. If you have browsed at Amazon, have you noticed that when you return, the items you looked at previously will often be the first