Breaking News English

The Internet has changed the [nature / nurture] of the way we shop. More and more of us are shopping online [instead / rather] of in "bricks and mortar" stores. In the United Kingdom, this is having [mire / dire] consequences for the traditional high-street store. A [respective / respected] business leader has released a report containing [grin / grim] statistics on the future of U.K. retailing. CEO Bill Grimsey warns that 47 per cent of Britain's [chain / chained] stores are "horribly [stressed / stresses] financially". This [equals / amounts] to some 20,000 shops. He predicts a quarter of these will be out [for / of] business within the next three years. Mr Grimsey has also said that the continual [demise / despise] of traditional shopping streets has led to what he termed as "ugly" town centres.

Mr Grimsey provided a [range / derange] of reasons for the degeneration of Britain's downtown areas. Over 40,000 of Britain's shops are empty; [evenly / roughly] eleven per cent of all [retail / detail] space. Grimsey said many stores have not sufficiently [risen / rising] to meet the challenge [posed / posted] by the Internet. He said that rather than looking to the future, and at innovative ideas to [lure / lurk] customers back, many stores are still stuck [on / in] the past. In particular, he said companies were too ["nostalgia" / "nostalgic"] . Another reason is that multinational companies are draining local areas [of / for] money. He said: "It is not difficult to keep local money within the local economy, but it doesn’t work if…we are listening too much to big [farms / firms] ."