English Vocabulary & Expressions for SHOPPING in North America

Hello. Do you like shopping? I hate shopping. I do like grocery shopping, though. That's

fun. See all the different food, but we have to be very, very careful when we go shopping

or not. Doesn't matter. If you like to waste money and spend money, don't worry about this.

But if you're like me and you like to save money and you like sales, this lesson is for

you. The problem is the corporations and the stores, they're out to get you, they want

to trick you into spending more of your hard-earned cash or money, or putting things on your credit

card. So, this lesson is called-ba-da-da-da-buyer beware. "Beware" means be careful. If you're

going to buy something, be careful. Now, this could be the reason why it takes me two hours

to go to the grocery store and buy food for a week. A grocery store is like a food store,

as opposed to a regular store which has clothes and everything. So, a grocery store only sells

food. Those are my favourite ones. Some grocery stores sell everything, like towels, pots,

pans, clothes. Wow, that's like three hours for me. So, just in a supermarket or a grocery

store takes me hours. If you see me in the supermarket, say hi. I might say hi back and

throw a grape at you or something.

So, the stores have flyers. Now, "flyer" is a piece of paper that advertises things. You

can find them online, which isn't a piece of paper, or you can find them in the newspaper,

and they basically are attracting you to go to their store. So, they have many different

kinds of supermarkets, many brands, many... Ugh, it's chaos, but I'm going to give you

some terms that'll help you sort out the best deals. We have to be careful of the words

that we use or the promotions that they're actually giving us. Things like "flash sale",

"daily deals", "buy it now", "must buy". These sales are basically timed. So, for example,

on a flash sale, it could be from 8am to 12pm. So, this means you only have four hours to

buy this product at 50% off. If it's $12.01, it's full price. If you go there at $7.58

and you buy it, it's full price. But only from 9am to 12pm, it's half price. What does

this do? This gets you to buy it. Sometimes we call these "impulse buys". "Impulse buys"

means you buy it now, don't think about it, just give me your money, which you can do.

But we have to be careful of these. "Daily deals", they're a little bit different from

a flash sale. "Flump", from a flash sale. "Daily deals" are usually Monday and Tuesday

they have a special deal. Or on Saturday and Sunday, this product is $5.99, all of the

other days it's going to be $7.99. So, you can actually get some good deals, but if you

miss the daily deal, you have to pay full price. So, again, these are techniques to

get you to the store on certain days. It's the same with "buy it now" or "must buy".

These three are based on usually a day. So, for example, Sunday or Monday, it's half price.

I don't know. Usually on the weekend, things go on sale. But that is kind of illogical

because that's when everyone else goes shopping.

So, one thing that I really like, we could call this my hobby, is something called "price

match". So, the store might call it "price match" or "price promise". This is a fantastic

way for you to save money. And this is for a grocery store, sometimes electronic stores

will also offer this. But a "price match" or a "price promise" basically means if you

see the product at another store for a cheaper price, they will give you the product at the

same price as the other store. Let me clarify this. Let's say that you go to store A, and

this beautiful red marker, "buy it now", is $5.99, but I am a smart shopper, and this

other marker, which is also red, at the other store is $3.99. If I take the flyer or the

advertisement to the red marker store A, they will give me this price of this store. Is

that confusing? So, basically, you go to the store and go, "Hey, this store B has this

for $5, this is $10, they will give it to you for $5." Yes. So, basically, they want

you to shop only at their store. They don't want you to go to different stores. Hey, that

saves us time. So, "price match" or "price promise" is actually a really good thing,

but again, you have to do your homework. You've got to check, you've got to look. How much

is it here? How much is it here? How much is it here? Oh, cheaper? Okay, good. Price

match. Cool.

Another thing that is very tricky, sometimes gets me, is if you see a sign like this. It

says, "The entire store 70% off." Now, you guys watching this video on your phone, you

probably can't see this tiny red writing that says, "Up to", and it says, "On selected

styles". So, really, you think, oh, if you're looking at this on a big screen, you can see

the red writing. "The entire store is 70% off", so I can go into a store and everything

is 70% off. Oh, how exciting, let's go. And then you get to the store, and you put the

stuff on the counter, and the person clips it through, and it's not 70% off, and you

go, "What is going on?" And they go, "Yeah, it says on the sign." In very small writing,

"Up to 70% off on selected styles", so this means they will only have certain things that

they choose 70% off. Stuff in the store might not even be on sale, so you're there, and

you've just bought everything for full price, almost. So, be careful. Look very carefully

at the sign. As a rule, by law, they actually must write "Up to" and "On selected styles".

This thing here is called an asterisk, asterisk or star, so always look for the asterisk.

The asterisk will show you the exception to something, so that means, oh, great, oh, there's

an asterisk, not a great deal anymore, so be careful.

I see this a lot in supermarkets. So, if you buy three, it's $5. Oh, so you think, "Oh,

great. If you buy three, great, I'm going to buy three for $5." But you see the asterisk

again. By the way, it's called an asterisk, like an asterisk. You see this nasty little

asterisk again, and you can buy three for $5, but you don't actually want three watermelons.

Who can eat three watermelons? Well, someone that's hungry, I guess. You just want to buy

one of them, so you think, "Okay, so if they're three for $5, one of them is going to be $1.67.

Not a deal." But then you get there, and it's, beep, $2. What happened? So, you have to be

careful because sometimes they will charge you more if you don't buy three. So, you actually

have to buy three watermelons. How are you going to carry those home? Don't buy three

watermelons. So, three for $5, be careful. This BOGO, BOGO, I got a BOGO, sounds like

a booger. BOGO means buy one, get one. So, this can be pretty devious, too. So, you buy

one, get one. Now, this could mean you get one for free, doubt it, or they might say

get one for half price. So, it's still a deal. You buy one at regular price, the second one

is half price. One t-shirt, so you get two t-shirts, they're $20 each, $40. If you buy

one for half price, they would only be $30. Oh, Ronnie can do math. This is amazing. So,

buy one, get one. Be careful, it can mean buy one, get one free, or buy one, get one

for half price. This crazy thing here, look at all these numbers. Two for one. Hmm. Two

for one. This is a good deal, I think. It's the numbers again. So, it means you buy two

of them, but you pay for one. You get it free. So, you buy one thing, you get another thing

for free. These aren't very popular sales. You have to be careful, because you know there's

going to be an asterisk on it, and it's going to say on selected styles only. But this is

a good deal. Two for one, woo-hoo. These two signs are wonderful. There's the markdown

and the clearance. Now, in Toronto, in Canada, we have a store that's wonderful. I'm not

going to give it any credit unless it wants to give me some sponsorship. Anyways, I always

go to the clearance section of this store. There's a red sign, ding, ding, ding. As soon

as I go in the store, it's like a magnet. Come to the clearance section, Ronnie. So,

I will always go to the clearance section, or it could be called markdowns. So, I will

buy something, it will be very cheap, and I'll be very happy, but actually I don't like

it. So, I will go back to the store and try to return it with my receipt, and they will

say, "No, I'm sorry. We cannot return this." Why? Why can you not return this? I have a

receipt, I didn't use it, it's a pillow. No, we can't. Because it's in the clearance or

the markdown section, many stores will have different rules about the return or the refund

policy. Just a tip here, if they tell you you can't return it, always ask to speak to

the manager, and probably you can get a little refund. Thank you. If you complain enough,

you'll get what you want.

There's another technique, a little trick to get you to spend more money, and it's called

"buy more, save more". It's kind of the same idea as "buy three for five dollars", but

it works like this. If I buy one marker, it's $10, but if I buy two markers, I can get both

of these markers for $19. Oh, I've saved a dollar. I don't need two markers, I just need

one. But they get you to buy more and spend more money on things maybe you do or do not

need. If you need them, perfect. If you don't, be careful.

Another thing that stores love are some kind of points system. They can be things like

air miles, or loyalty points, or... Many stores have some kind of points system. If you shop

there and you collect points, then you can get a discount, or money back, or some promotion.

So, they will have certain things. If you buy this thing that you don't need or want,

you will get 100... 1,000 extra points. Oh, great. Oh, that's amazing. So, if I buy this

dirty rag that has water on it, I can get 1,000 points. How much is a rag? $10. How

many points am I going to get? 1,000. What does that mean? Nothing. Maybe $1. So, guess

what? I don't need your rag. Be careful with the loyalty points. Be careful with all these

tricks that they play on you. These asterisks are the worst.

I think the most humorous, which means funny thing, are these when I see these. There is

a store in a mall that... In a hotel, there's a store, in a mall, in a hotel that I usually

go through, and this store has been going out of business for the last three years.

So, at first, when you see... Or if you're a tourist and you're in the hotel, they go,

"The store is going out of business. It must be a great sale. 70% off." Okay? So, you go,

you buy something, you think you're getting a deal. Maybe you go back to the same area

a year later and like, "Hey, that store didn't go out of business."

There's another one called the "store closing sale". Same idea. They will put up these beautiful,

huge signs to attract you, especially tourists, to come into their store and buy this. We're

going out of business. It's half price. Like, "Whoa, what a deal!" They're not going out

of business. Their store is not closing, but you think they are because they want you to

impulse buy. They want you to buy their product, put it in your suitcase, and take it home,

and put it on your shelf, and never use it. That's what we do with souvenirs, isn't it?

So, we have to be careful with these flash sales, buy more, pay more, do more, blah,

blah, blah. Be careful when you're shopping, but most importantly, have fun and don't let

the monsters at the shopping mall kill you.