NEWS worthy Clips (1/2)

Update your vocabulary with news clips from around the world 

Opera singer Beverly Sills died at 78

One of today’s most cutting-edge* online retailers, Threadless, opened its first store last summer in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. This will be the first of up to four stores planned nationwide in the next two to three years by the groundbreaking* T-shirt design business, which launched in 2000.

Threadless is not alone. A growing contingent of online retailers are opening , establishing a physical place where shoppers can touch the and talk to the sales clerks. It’s a movement that is as online shopping matures and merchants look for ways to build their brands.

“Our first thought was, ‘That’s really not what we do,’” says Jeffery Kalmikoff of Threadless. But, after mulling it over,* Kalmikoff and his creative crew determined a physical store could draw more people to the website and reach shoppers who might not otherwise hear of Threadless.

Physical trumps virtual

For most online retailers, the motive to step out of cyberspace boils down to a few long-standing retail customs: observing and talking to shoppers, testing products and reaching new customers.

Indeed, online retail sales in the United States passed the $100 billion mark in 2006, yet only 4.7 percent of total retail sales, according to JupiterResearch. “We still live in a world that values the physical over the virtual,” says Rainier Evers of . “Online brands want to be seen and want to be part of the real world to add some reliability and realness to their brands. And it doesn’t hurt to be where most consumers are still spending their money.”

 

Vocabulary Focus

cutting-edge(adj)--- very modern and with all the newest features

groundbreaking (adj)--- very new and dramatically different from other things of its type

mull (something) over (phr v)--- to think carefully about something for a long time

boil down to (phr v)--- to indicate the main reason for something

Specialized terms