Waterstone's Essays

Six Major Obstacles to Effective Business Communication The class book insists, "To avoid obstacles to communication we should avoid clichés, jargon, slang, sexist and racist language, euphemisms, and doublespeak" (Business Communication, 2012, p. 63). Let us define each of them and see how they can serve us a bad service and, maybe we will find them useful in rare circumstances. The first obstacle to communication is Clichés. Cliché merely is a hackneyed phrase. The course book adds that "cliché

In 2013, HMV fell into administration but the brand has since recovered. It became the UK’s largest music retailer in 2016, by exceeding Amazon on physical music (Gumble, 2017). The company has grown its share by 3.1 percentage points of the physical entertainment market (Kantar WorldPanel, 2016) and has attracted 41.000 new shoppers. At the beginning of 2016, HMV recorded a 2% rise in sales of video games, DVDs and CDs. At the end of the year, the market share of HMV was about 16.3% (Statista, 2016)

Known for selling a diverse range of cheap, affordable products and specialty services, Walmart Stores, Inc. was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 in the States and has since developed into a prominent multinational retail corporation. With their Canadian division branch headquarters in Mississauga, Ontario, Walmart Canada operates more than 370 stores, and is one of Canada’s largest employers. Having reached considerable growth, stability, and reputation in the United States throughout the

- Collapse in demand (e.g. Borders bookstores) At times, the demand decreases sharply and hence causes trouble for the company. Borders was a leading bookstore in US for a few decades but it shut down in 2011. Some of the reasons for this were – as the world was moving towards e-books, it didn’t do much. It used to sell e-books for devices like Kobo and Cruz which were not even popular. It opened too many stores across the country without realising that it was time when people were shifting to e-books

Jodi Picoult is an American writer , that lived in a place where equality was lacking , leading her to become an activist for most of her life , to obtain equality for all. Jodi Picoult grew up seeing equality for men and women , almost nonexistent. She also saw many cases of racism. This impacted her in many of her literary works , which influenced her writing style . With all that Jodi Picoult is seeing around her she decided to join a group called VIDA: Women in literary Arts , which is a

WH Smith PLC is one of the UK’s leading retailers and is made up of two core businesses – Travel and High Street. The Travel business operates 757 units, mainly in airports, railway stations, motorway service areas, hospitals and workplaces, primarily in the UK. Travel stores sell a more tailored range of products than High Street stores to cater for people on the move or in need of a convenience offer. The High Street business operates 618 stores with an extensive reach across the UK and a presence

Case Study: Waterstones vs. Kindle In 1982 Tim Waterstone opened his first bookshop on Old Brompton Road in London. Waterstones is presently one of the biggest book-selling chains in England. It operates 275 stores in the UK and Europe. Waterstones has some features that make it unlike any other book retailer. As the chain proclaims, "no two Waterstones bookshops are the same". Local market is what matters most, so the assortment of books differs in each shop, as well as their order, reflecting