PDC (EN) : Buy, sell!
Internship London > Culture > Buy, sell !
Far from being a post about the stock exchange (favorite subject of my firm), let’s be for some time very light and talk about the commercial life in London.
Like Paris, the city blends big supermarkets and shopping precincts*, daring Tesco’s (like Intermarchés) in the city, without neglecting the corner shops**.
A thematic organization
In France, every Carrefour provides everything you could need : meals, meat, clothes, fruits, computers, paper, stationery***, quick-frozen meals, canned food, CDs, books, dishes, furniture, etc. As for Tesco, you will just find food in it : to buy your pen, you’ll have to visit another shop.
Each and every retail chain has then its own domain : you’ll have to adapt. The biggest ones dare to try automatic checkouts, more developed than in France (3D, checks, cash, CB), and even checkouts with just enough space to put the bar-code reader and the bags, like in Germany. Note that they haven’t yet stopped to give plastic bags!
The vital caddie is available, but in self-service: you don’t have to give a deposit to use it, like in France. Everything is about confidence — and CCTV****.
A real (French) diversity of products
French people don’t really envy English gastronomy (see one of my future posts on this subject). It’s perhaps one of the reasons why it is possible to find such a big number of French products, like:
- Water: Volvic, Cristaline, …
- The French Baguette, French Brioche and French Croissants,
- Jam from « Bonne-Maman »,
- Cleaning products (as strange as it seems),
- Beauty products (Yves-Rocher),
- Cereals
… and really more than that ;-)
Some products are however unobtainable: chocolate (they just have chocolate to bake with – difficult to deal with that, especially for me…), syrup (you know, the thing with added water, not juice of the fruit cans!), and so on.
Eat it quickly, why not this evening?
If you buy food, it’s in order to eat it, isn’t it? So, go home, and eat: you’ll not have enough time to wait before the expiration date, from three days to one week. Even fruits have a limit; for anglo-saxon bread[5], you’ll have three days (France: two weeks); for meat, one day (France: up to one week); for milk, one week (France: some months, closed[6]). Really enjoyable… especially without freezer!
*
shopping precincts : zones commerciales
**
corner shops : commerces de proximité
***
stationery : fournitures de bureau
**** CCTV : Caméras de surveillance
[5] This bread is our « Pain de mie »
[6] Here, the milk is pasteurized, in France it’s
upérisé.
[ Article traduit du français ]
