Section BDirections: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by som

Section B

Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.

High street shops use a variety of means to attract shoppers, such as striking window displays, huge red "Sale" signs and special promotions.

Online retailers also employ similar techniques to attract people to their websites and to make a purchase. "In the Internet boom years, online retailers competed on prices, but today you pay the same price online as offline. Any difference is made up by the delivery charge," says Gavin George, a partner at Itim Group, a consultancy.

Today's online retailers are using e-mail marketing, personalization technology, smart search engines and multimedia in an effort to increase transactions and sales.

Some online retailers are using targeted e-mail services to encourage customers to visit their sites. The travel and leisure retailer Lastminute.com, for example, sends more than 2 million e-mails to customers every week. The content of the e-mail is tailored to fit the recipient's age, lifestyle. and other factors.

Carl Lyons, head of marketing at Lastminute. com UK, says: "E-mail is a different medium with its own culture, so you have to know how to use it properly if it's going to be effective. What you're trying to do is to convert lookers into bookers."

My Points is an incentive scheme for online shoppers, which gives them points for reading e-mails, visiting sites and making purchases. The acquired points can be redeemed for a variety of goods and services. In the US, there are more than 10 million MyPoints registered users. The service is free to join and subscribers complete an online profile that produces 400 data points about them.

My Points does not pass on personal information (such as names and addresses) to third parties, but companies can use the customer profiles in targeted e-mail campaigns, which MyPoints manages. "Consumers expect to be rewarded for doing business with you. It's no longer a novelty to shop online," says David Brosse, marketing director of MyPoints Europe.

Finding your way around an online store can be difficult because many product search engines are not smart, says Nick Bidmead, chief operating officer of NCorp, a technology company: "Some search engines are too precise so you get no results. Others are too broad and so you end up with lots of results, most of which are irrelevant to your needs. What you want is the online equivalent of the shopkeeper who can find the product you want or suggest an alternative."

The online retailers used to win over traditional retailers by offering ______.

A．lower prices

B．free delivery charge

C．special sales

D．striking window displays