Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 704.
Reselling products for a profit.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 704.
© transcript Emily Beynon and for all of our current episodes to help you improve your English even faster.
This episode is called Reselling Products, Reselling Things for Profit.
It's a dialogue between Jesse and Masa about people who buy things and then sell them to other people for a higher price.
Let's get started.
Where are you going?
I'm going to stand in line to get one of the first eye dopes.
They go on sale this morning at 9 a.m.
Why don't you just wait a couple of days when there'll be no line?
I'm sure they're going to sell out.
And plus, I'm going to buy an extra one so I can resell it.
You're going to resell it?
Oh, you mean like scalping tickets?
You got it.
I can put a markup on it and make a nice little profit.
You mean you're going to jack up the price?
I'm not gouging anybody.
I'm just putting a little premium on a product that's in demand.
But what if they don't sell out?
Won't you be stuck with an extra eye dope I won't have any problems unloading it.
Trust me, this is a simple case of supply and demand.
I've got the supply and there's a big demand.
Hey, where are you going?
I didn't say you could go with me.
Why can't I?
Because then I'd be helping you to junk up the market.
And that would be shooting myself in the foot.
Our dialogue begins with Jesse saying to Masa, where are you going?
Masa says, I'm going to stand in line to get one of the first eye dopes.
To stand in line means to stand with many other people, one in front of the other, waiting to do something, waiting to get into some place.
You may stand in line at the grocery store waiting for the person in front of you to finish.
Masa is standing in line to buy one of the first iDopes.
This, of course, is not a real electronic product like an iPhone or an iPad.
A dope is, when it's a person, a stupid person.
You say to someone, boy, he's a real dope.
You mean that person is really stupid.
It's an insulting term, obviously.
Dope as a noun would be a drug like cocaine or heroin, something that you would take to get high, to get intoxicated.
So Masa is going to buy this electronic piece of equipment called an iDope.
He says they go on sale this morning at 9 a.m.
To go on sale means they become available for people to buy them.
That expression on sale is ambiguous.
It can have two meanings.
One is that the store is selling it at a discount at a lower price than normal.
The other is simply that they're selling it, especially when we talk about new products, new things.
We may talk about go on sale, to indicate the day or the time when they are available to be purchased, when you can buy them.
Jesse says to Masa, why don't you just wait a couple of days and when there'll be no line.
In other words, if you wait a few days, you can go and buy one without having to wait in line.
Masa says, I'm sure they're going to sell out.
To sell out.
Here means for a store to sell all of the product out. all of the particular product that it has.
So if the store is selling coffee and everyone comes in and buys the coffee and now there's no more coffee to buy, we would say the coffee is sold out or the store has sold out of coffee.
Masa is sure that the eye dopes are going to sell out.
They're going to go quickly.
And plus, he says, in addition, I'm going to buy an extra one so I can resell it.
I should mention that sell out has a couple of different meanings.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
To resell means to buy something from a store, especially something that everyone wants to get and is difficult to buy, and sell it to someone else at a higher price.
This is something that happens online on the Internet all the time.
Masa wants to resell the iDope.
Jesse says you're going to resell it?
Oh, you mean like scalping tickets?
To scalp S-C-A-L-P tickets means to buy tickets for a concert or a sporting event, a game, at the regular price and then sell it to someone else at a higher price.
In some states in the United States, scalping is illegal.
Not in California.
So scalping is considered by some people to be unethical, but most of us understand that when you have something that's valuable, you can usually sell it for a higher price.
Masa says, you got it, meaning that's right, exactly.
Exactly.
A markup, one word, is an increase in the price when you sell it to someone else.
It's how much you are raising or increasing the price.
If you buy something for $5 and you sell it to someone else for $10, there was a $5 markup.
So Masa says he can make a nice or a good profit.
Nice little doesn't necessarily mean small.
It means a pretty good profit.
A profit is, of course, the amount of money you make between selling and buying.
You don't always make a profit.
Sometimes you lose money.
A profit is when you get more money than you paid for the item or the materials.
Jesse says, you mean you're going to jack up the price.
To jack up the price means to increase the price of something, to make something more expensive.
However, it's normally used as a way of criticizing.
It's a negative way of expressing the idea.
If you say oh, the store jacked up their prices or the gas stations jacked up their prices after the price of oil went up, you're really saying that they are taking advantage of you in some way.
So it's a negative way to express the idea.
And you notice that Masa responds by saying, I'm not gouging anybody.
To gouge, G-O-U-G-E, here means to hurt someone by charging a very high price.
So you buy something for a dollar and you sell it to someone else for $50.
Some people would say you are gouging them.
You are charging them way too much money.
Masa says he's not doing that.
He says, I'm just putting a little premium on a product that's in demand.
Premium here means a little extra, an additional amount of something.
Premium has other uses in English.
Those can be found in our learning guide, of course.
The product, the eye dope, is in demand.
To be in demand means people want it.
It's desirable.
Masa is defending himself against this criticism that he is gouging or jacking up prices.
Jesse says, but what if they don't sell out?
That is, what if there are lots of eye dopes?
She says, won't you be stuck with an extra eye dope?
To be stuck with something means to have something that is not desirable but that you cannot get rid of.
You can't get someone else to take from you.
Masa says, I won't have any problems unloading it.
To unload U-N-L-O-A-D means here to sell something, to get rid of something, to be able to sell something to other people who want to buy it.
That's unloading it when we're talking about selling things.
Unload can also mean to take furniture from a truck or a car and put it down on the ground or into your house.
That could be unloading as well.
The opposite would be loading, putting things on the truck or in a car.
But here it means selling things.
Masa says, trust me, this is a simple case of supply and demand.
A simple case means it's not complicated.
This is just a case or an example of supply and demand.
Supply and demand refer to how much people want something, their demand, and how much or how available is the supply of that something.
How much is available?
Supply and demand is part of basic economic theory.
It tries to explain why you have prices the way you do, especially in a free market economy.
But we won't go into all of that.
You'll have to take a course in economics if you want to understand that.
Masa says I've got the supply, meaning I have the supply, I have the products and there's a big demand.
There are lots of people who want to buy them.
Masa then says, hey, where are you going?
Jesse says I'm going with you.
You're not the only one in this house who wants to earn a little extra dough.
Dough, D-O-U-G-H, is an informal term for money.
So Jesse is going to buy an iDope and resell it also, even though she was just criticizing Masa for doing the same thing.
Masa says, I didn't say you could go with me.
Jesse says, why can't I?
Masa says, because then I'd be helping you to junk up the market.
The expression to junk J-U-N-K up the market relates to the idea that if there are too many people selling something, that is, if the supply increases, the price will go down.
People won't pay a high price if they can get it for less somewhere else.
To junk up the market means again to increase the supply of something so that the price of that something goes down.
Masa says, that would be shooting myself in the foot.
This is an expression to shoot yourself in the foot, meaning to hurt yourself, to do something that will be bad for you.
So if you want to meet girls and you decide never to wash your hair and to eat a lot of garlic...
Well, you're shooting yourself in the foot.
Not a lot of girls are going to want to talk to you, perhaps, if you have dirty hair.
That's why I don't have any hair, you see.
I don't have to worry about that problem.
Oh, and I'm married, too, so that really means it's not a problem for me.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I'm going to stand in line to get one of the first eye dopes.
They go on sale this morning at 9 a.m.
Why don't you just wait a couple of days when there'll be no line?
I'm sure they're going to sell out.
And plus, I'm going to buy an extra one so I can resell it.
You're going to resell it?
Oh, you mean like scalping tickets?
You got it.
I can put a markup on it and make a nice little profit.
You mean you're going to jack up the price?
I'm not gouging anybody.
I'm just putting a little premium on a product that's in demand.
But what if they don't sell out?
Won't you be stuck with an extra eye dope?
I won't have any problems unloading it.
Trust me, this is a simple case of supply and demand.
I've got the supply, and there's a big demand.
Hey, where are you going?
I'm going with you.
You're not the only one in this house who wants to earn a little extra dough.
I didn't say you could go with me.
Why can't I?
Because then I'd be helping you to junk up the market.
And that would be shooting myself in the foot.
Her dialogues are always in demand.
Everyone wants to get a copy.
That's because I'm talking about our own scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
