Thursday, 8 May 2008

Who's coming to do shopping with me?

From Bob Nordvall’s article of newspaper “The Florentine”

There are people who say that they are not keen on shopping, but…is it true? I don’t think so!
Our society has a huge number of shopping centres or markets, where we can find a lot of items from food to jewelleries. In a lot of Italian cities, once or twice every week, travelling markets are held: for example, in Florence you can find one at Cascine Park on Tuesday where a wide range of brand or second-hand items are on sale.
The travelling market is a very important centre for all people, because it represents a very cheap way for doing shopping: an important thing is that the stalls tend to enrich their range of items and they try to keep prices low. Usually cheap goods come from China, but when there are some clothes or other items that are made in Italy, the sellers warn the buyers about it. Even if thrift shops and Salvation Army stores exist in the USA, certainly they don't offer the quality and the wide choice you can find in Italy.
At this time nobody wonders where the clothes came from. Many people think that all clothes, shoes and other goods come from the cheap production, but they are wrong: infact most clothes come from important or famous shops, which usually sell brand items. The owners of these stores decide to send their faulty goods to the travelling market, but they usually have very small defects such as a slightly clearer colour than the original item.
It may also happen that something is smaller or larger than usual, but as you pay much less for these clothes, the sellers won’t refund you or change the item if you decide to return it. However you can ask for a tailor’s help!
Some of the goods that are sold in these markets have a label, where we can find the brand or the origin of that garment: some of them say “Made in Italy” , others “ Styled in Italy and others say “ Imported producing” limiting the know-how of the buyer’s market.
Certainly nobody has ever questioned the quality of these travelling markets: the material is very good and sometimes it is difficult to recognize the genuine item from the fake one (even if a specialist eye knows how to do it). However for lots of people it’s not important, because they are interested in buying something nice and they do not mind the labels!
An important warning ,however, is : when you go shopping in a travelling market keep your money in a safe place, because mugging is a real danger here!
In spite of that, the travelling market is an amusing and interesting place, where you can buy neraly everything and discover new things that you never see in other places!

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