Learned a New Word Yesterday

Having one of those geekish moments...

OK, so I'm not used to this and my ego has taken a bit of a hit, but one of my former and very good students, a native Chinese speaker no less (she learned French in something like 3 months just for the purposes of coming to the school where I work) came in with an application form for a major, major, MAJOR worldwide internet search engine. One of her accomplishments was listed as upselling. Now, I had heard of upsetting, upstanding, upscale, upmarket, uproarious, upending, upchucking... but upselling? Nope.

So Marie-Anne (not her real name) explained the concept. Upselling is when a member of sales staff in an upscale shop is able to sell a customer a higher priced or more luxurious item. Imagine that you walk into a major department store (El Corte Inglès, Galéries Lafayette, Harrod's, GUM...) looking for a nice medium-range bag or coat. Instead, you listen to the salesperson pull at your heartstrings, give in to those deep-seated desires for a really nice status symbol, and walk away with a bag or a coat costing the equivalent of a month's salary.

You may feel better though poorer, and the store has earned more thanks to your need to feel better or because you listened to your desires or bought on instinct. There's nothing wrong with buying in these ways, as long as you know you are doing it and as long as it doesn't become a bad habit.

If you have moments like these, do share them. I will.

Thanks for reading!

Paul

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