CCTV9英语新闻12月：圣诞购物浪潮席卷伦敦

There are still 3 weeks left till Christmas but the holiday shopping frenzy¹ is well underway. Now let’s go to London and check out how the retail² business there is getting ready for the busy season.

Christmas is one of the busiest periods for digital printing company Photobox.It will dispatch around 2.5 million parcels, that’s 2-3 items per second before the big day.

Stan Laurent is the company’s CEO.

"Christmas is about a third of our business overall so we sell a very emotional product so they’re very suitable for an event like Christmas and we’ll probably grow solid double digit³ percentage growth at Photobox and all of the brands." said Stan.

This Christmas is set to be a record breaker in the UK. Shoppers are expected to spend 1.4 billion pounds more than last year.

There are still 3 weeks left till Christmas but the holiday shopping frenzy is well underway. 

There are still 3 weeks left till Christmas but the holiday shopping frenzy is well 

underway.

Total spending will increase 3.5 percent adding more than 40 billion pounds to the economy.

Half of that will be from online sales - which is expected to increase by a fifth to 5 billion pounds.

And shoppers are getting better at finding bargains too - using the internet in new ways.

Amazon is of course a favourite with internet shoppers.

There are still 3 weeks left till Christmas but the holiday shopping frenzy is well underway. 

There are still 3 weeks left till Christmas but the holiday shopping frenzy is well 

underway.

But even it’s being side-stepped by some as shoppers choose to buy direct from the supplier.

A recent change in policy means retailers⁴ who already sell their products on Amazon can sell them cheaper direct if they wish. That’s leading to a bargain-hunting frenzy says Planet Retail’s Malcolm Pinkerton.

Amazon’s fighting back.It’s testing unmanned drones to deliver parcels to customers.

The so-called Octocopers will be able to deliver packages weighing up to 2.3 kg within 30 minutes of an order being placed. The Prime Air service comes as Amazon looks to improve growth by efficiency.

But it won’t be coming anytime soon - it’s likely to be 5 years before it’s up and running.

1 frenzy   

n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动

参考例句：

• He was able to work the young students up into a frenzy.他能激起青年学生的狂热。
• They were singing in a frenzy of joy.他们欣喜若狂地高声歌唱。

2 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

3 digit   

n.零到九的阿拉伯数字，手指，脚趾

参考例句：

• Her telephone number differs from mine by one digit.她的电话号码和我的只差一个数字。
• Many animals have five digits.许多动物有5趾。

4 retailers   

零售商，零售店( retailer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• High street retailers reported a marked increase in sales before Christmas. 商业街的零售商报告说圣诞节前销售量显著提高。
• Retailers have a statutory duty to provide goods suitable for their purpose. 零售商有为他们提供符合要求的货品的法定义务。