Archive for the ‘Russian Course’ Category
Monitoring VAT Refunds is Misguiding Retailers about International Expenditure
Retailers, particularly in the luxury sector, are mistakenly measuring the footfall of overseas clients to their premises by measuring VAT refund applications filed by their customers on site to be redeemed at the airports. So in order to simplify the counting process, they add the amounts refunded by – for example – all Chinese clients who fill in the VAT documents in store and then decide the amount of expenditure by the Chinese during a certain period of time.
Following this addition exercise they would compare the spending rate and footfall of different nationalities using the same process.
This is happening in almost every department store in London, Paris and New York… In addition to flagship boutiques whose managers are desperate to quantify international contribution towards their overall retail turnover.
This way of calculating the international footfall in any premises depending only on VAT refunds is severely inaccurate for a simple reason: Not All International Customers Claim VAT. Actually most of Arab customers, for example, don’t claim any VAT. I personally served many rich international clients who would consider waiting in a cue at airports to claim VAT is a shameful act (one of them felt insulted by the fact that I offered to assist him with his VAT documents!).
Knowing that measuring international footfall and overseas expenditure is extremely important for businesses in cities like London, Paris, New York, etc… There is a rather simple process which determines the facts more accurately. Retailers should depend on their staff feedback to get more accurate figures. Staff members can easily report international sales to their managers or more directly to the accounting department by adjusting the way they record their sales.
Nearly all luxury retail businesses depend on computerised tills applicable to generate various sales reports. IT managers can easily add a button to the sales screen on these tills which a sales person can quickly tick to determine the nationality of the client. JOB DONE . So to simplify this, let’s say I’m serving a Russian customer… Closed the sale and went to the till to process the payment. Before I finalize the sale, the till would show me a small window in which I would have a multiple choice of nationalities. I would press for choice number 4 (this is for Russian in this example) and the till would assign the word Russian to this sale. Simples!!
One Retail Manager might argue that not all staff members can easily determine the nationality of their clients. This is right! as I always get confused between a Chinese and a Japanese customer. Let’s use the carrot here and base a small portion of the sale commission on whether the sale is accompanied by nationality of the customer or not. Through my experience, any salesperson can politely ask any customer about where they are from whether when helping them with currency conversion or simply during the process of breaking the ice or even simpler… by throwing the blame on the manager and claim that they are obliged to include the nationality of the client when processing the sale. In my courses I teach the Collecting-Feedback-in-order-to-keep-you-updated-on-our-new-releases-Trick.
There are many other solutions to this problem, but through experience I think that this is the most convenient one logistically.
Having inaccurate figures about international clients in luxury retail businesses is really dangerous as this does not only affect accounting but also buying and merchandising processes and even recruitment decisions.
I think that retailers should fix this bug in their operations before it grows out of hand and they become like the farmer who bought hay to feed his chickens.
About the Author
M Said Chaarawi is the Managing Director of UnderstandArabia Ltd… A Training and Consultancy Firm based in London UK. www.understandarabia.com
why do i always get violations when others who curse me dont?
like i had black girl give me an answer just saying are u an f-ing idiot ? and i reported it and my question about african americans in Russian population was deleted ? but her answer was not ?it happens to me everytime ?
There is no way a question can be deleted, but not any of the answers. It was deleted because you pissed off a black girl, probably something racist. How you can tell she was black from being online is also extremely amazing.
How To Learn Russian And Not Quit After Day One
For English speakers and for most South American and European countries, learning Latin and Anglo Saxon languages is rather easy. But when faced to learn something that doesn’t share the same grammar rules, alphabet, genders or verb tenses, we’re in a bucket of trouble. That’s why Russian, next to other “different” languages such as Japanese, Chinese or Korean is considered hard and many people don’t even get a “day 2″ in their free online language lesson course for Russian, simply because they give up on something that seems way to hard to understand, not to mention learn to a point where you’re fluent with it. But if you take things slow and don’t let learning Russian overwhelm you with its complexity, you should pull it off.
Step 1 – Mastering the Russian Alphabet and Numerals
First of all, before you can move to anything related to vocabulary or grammar, you need to get acquainted with the Russian alphabet. The Russian alphabet contains 33 letters, of which 21 consonants and 10 vowels, the remaining two letters being without sound. One of the confusing bits about mastering the Russian alphabet is that some letters look like those from the Latin alphabet and have the same pronunciation, whereas others look the same but have different sounds. For example, the letter “M” from the Russian alphabet is pronounced “ehm”, just like in English. On the other hand the letter “X” in Russian is a hard “H” and not the “ecs” sound from English.
Step 2 – Learning the Basic Set of Russian Words
Each language has approximately 1,000 words that form the base language used in daily conversation. This does not include technical or specialization terms. In Russian, 1,000 words form up around 70-75% of the normal language used so you’ll have to learn as much of these possible if you want to progress to more advanced phrases or grammar.
Try learning what you would teach your child to say in your native language first: colors, mammals, fruits, vegetables, greetings, farewells, days of the week, months of the year and so forth. Keep it basic and try to learn every word in a context, not just from a list. If you get hold of some English-Russian translations (or well, mother tongue-Russian translations if you’re not a native English speaker) you can find these words and see the exact context they’re used. This will be a lot helpful later on.
Step 3 – Basic Grammar
Ok, “grammar” is a wide open battlefield and you’ll have to take it down sector by sector. Start out with genders and learn how to spot the gender of a Russian noun. This can be easily done by analyzing the ending consonant(s) of the noun. You should look on the Internet for a list of noun endings for masculine, feminine and neutral and print it out. It takes around 10-15 minutes to get used to determining the gender of a Russian noun, but it will prove to be an important thing to know in the future.
Verb tenses are a different story and it won’t be easy to understand and analyze them like you did with the noun genders. Russian tenses have certain aspects that make it harder for you to spot the exact tense at first. I would suggest you just skim through a set of tense rules and terminations (as long as there are examples for each tense) and try to learn them “naturally” later on, by the ear.
From hereon, you’re on your own. You already know the alphabet, the basic vocabulary and the basic grammar rules, so all you need to do now is practice a lot by reading and listening to Russian. I prefer reading as a starting point, since listening has its flaws, although if you want to start pronouncing words correctly you’ll have to hear them spoken first.
When you reach a stage where you can already read an article or newspaper bit in Russian, that critical moment when you almost quit on your second day will be long behind you. Now all you need to do is increase your vocabulary and if possible, engage in a few Russian conversations as they will prove vital in your quest to achieve fluency in the Russian language.
About the Author
Increase your Russian language vocabulary at Russian lessons at Internet Polyglot by playing online games.
Free Online Dating With Oasis Active
If you live in Australia then it seems to be the free dating site of choice. This dating site is a good place to start if you are new to online dating and want to test the waters without hurting the bank account. In some cities there might not be many singles in your area so travelling into your closest big city to meet people is the norm.
Oasis active does seem to have a lot of ads on the site but that’s what keeps the site from being paid and the users understand that intuitively. Oasis active is one of the largest free dating sites in the world behind OkCupid and of course Plentyoffish. This makes it extremely active and full of interesting stories and information.
Dating in the real world is never easy as complicated emotions and personalities are at play, online dating is no different.
Oasis Active attempts to help you in the search for love near you or overseas. They do no help you will relationship problems or emotional insecurities so before you jump to judging their inability to make you happy perhaps you should look internally for validation. Spend some time writing some interesting and insightful information about yourself in your oasis active profile.
Once you find someone you like the look of simply send the a communication request and you will be able to swap phone numbers via email.
Once you have exchanged contact information the internet has done it’s amazing job and now it’s up to you to do the rest. Take your date down to the beach or to a bar/restaurant where you can get to know them and determine if you will get along in the future. Remember the only thing you really know about her is what she put in her profile so it’s pretty much a blind date. Be polite and respectful that she/he to will be nervous.
If things don’t work out for whatever reason simply excuse yourself and continue searching for dates. You might have to go on a few dates before you find someone you really connect with. Remember oasis active is now perfect and certainly has some flaws just like you. It’s biggest would have to be how it handles African and Russian scammers.
It seems to have a lot of profiles that are from Nigeria and other countries. Oasis Active does actively attempt to get rid of these users from the site and has information on what to look out for. Just make sure your first date is somewhere public and you call your date up on the phone before organising anything tangible in the real world.
For more advice on oasis active and how to use free online dating sites visit pullingladies.com
About the Author
Learn Russian in Russia – A welcoming land with some of the best serene places
St. Petersburg and Moscow are the two places in Russia where ESL languages have great reputation. They are chosen by the students who are keen to learn Russian in Russia. Yes, it is actually a welcoming land with lots of serene places which you cannot forget in your entire life. Well, you can learn Russian from any corner of world, but it is better to learn the Russian language in its native country to get complete fluency. It is one major reason for the satisfied students of ESL languages. You can get good fluency in the Russian language only by studying the language at its native place.
The language school in Moscow is also an ESL languages partner center. There are different kinds of courses available for the students including standard courses, intensive courses and business courses. All these courses are designed to meet the requirements of students and to improve their language skills. The courses are designed for kids, adults and older people too. ESL is the perfect partner if someone is planning to learn Russian. Come here and meet new people to increase your communication with Russian people. You can get a chance to experience a completely new culture and those age-old traditions of Russia.
It is clear that you can learn Russian in Russia or in Ukraine. ESL languages also offer leisure activities for students. Such activities are actually to make students familiar with other students and give them a chance to find out more about Russian history and society. Russia is a country which has a plenty of artists in the field of painting, photography and writing. Such leisure activities also help students to plan trips and visits to explore Russian culture and everything about this often-startling country. Courses in the Russian language are split from beginner language to advanced level.
It depends upon the student which level of study one wants to choose according to your skills and proficiency in the language. The online enrolment for students is also available but make sure to read each and every sentence carefully. It is in fact very simple and quick. The online enrolment is available for both junior and adult students. So, learn Russian in Russia and acquire complete fluency over the language. There are numerous job opportunities available if you have passed an advanced level of Russian language. In fact ESL languages offer placement services as well which is especially for students who have excellent records during the course.
About the Author
ESL – Language studies abroad
http://www.esl-languages.com
language school in Moscow , learn Russian in Russia.
