Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 832, Creating an Online Store.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 832.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to become a member and get a learning guide for this episode.
This episode is a dialogue about creating or opening a new store online on the Internet.
Let's get started.
I'd say we're well on our way to establishing our new online store.
I can't wait for this to get off the ground.
Orders will pour in and we'll make money hand over fist.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Let's see where we are in our preparations.
All right.
We've created a marketing plan that includes several ways to drive traffic to our website.
That's great.
We've also installed a shopping cart and a secure way to process orders.
We can use that system to track orders, right?
That's right.
All customer information will be captured and we'll have a database of information we can mine later.
That's great.
We already have a place to house the inventory and a way to track it.
Right you are.
Now all we need is one last thing.
Yeah.
Any ideas?
No, none.
You?
Nope.
But as soon as we do, we'll be the next big thing in e-commerce.
Definitely.
Kay starts by saying I'd say I would say meaning here.
I think we're well on our way to establishing our new online store.
We're well on our way means we are well on our way, And that means that we are making good progress towards something.
We're getting closer to our goal, to finishing, in this case, this new project of establishing or starting an online store, a website basically on the internet where you sell things.
Greg says, I can't wait for this to get off the ground.
When someone says, I can't wait for something, they mean they're very excited about it.
Greg can't wait for this online store to get off the ground.
G-R-O-U-N-D.
To get something off the ground means to begin something, usually a project, to start something for the first time.
Greg says orders, people buying things, orders will pour in and will make money hand over fist.
The expression to pour P-O-U-R in means to receive a lot of something, especially money, but it could be letters or emails.
We could say the money is pouring in from our new product, our new thing that we are selling on the Internet.
Greg thinks money will pour in and that they will make money hand over fist F-I-S-T.
The expression to make money hand over fist means to make a lot of money, to get very rich by doing something.
Someone's making money hand over fist.
Kay says, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
The expression to get ahead of yourself, or to get ahead of ourselves means to get so excited about something that we begin to to think about all the wonderful things that will happen in the future and not focus on preparing for what's happening right now.
To get ahead of yourself would mean to start making plans, for example, about how you're going to spend your money that you are going to get from your new online website online store, rather Before you've actually started the business.
That's getting ahead of yourself.
Or you see a beautiful woman and you start thinking about how you're going to marry her and have children, and you don't even have her telephone number yet.
Kay says, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Let's see where we are in our preparations.
Let's see where we are meaning.
Let's look at where we are currently, what we are doing now for our preparations.
Greg says, all right.
We've created a marketing plan that includes several ways to drive traffic to our website.
A marketing plan is a plan about how you're going to go out and find customers and get them to buy your product.
Driving traffic means encouraging people to visit your website or to go to your store.
On the internet.
It means to get people we call them visitors to come to your website and look at it and hopefully buy something from it.
Kay says that's great.
We've also installed a shopping cart and a secure way to process orders.
To install, I-N-S-T-A-L-L, means to connect or to put something in somewhere.
It could be something physical like For example, I need a new water heater in my house.
So I ask a plumber, a person who deals with things like water heaters, to come in and install it in my house, to connect it, to put it in.
We also use this verb in talking about computer programs, computer software which are installed on a computer or on a computer that is running a website.
In this case the software that was installed was a shopping cart.
A shopping cart is a piece of software that allows you to look at things that are being sold and to buy them.
It's sort of the part of the website that you actually use to buy something.
If you go to a real physical store, like a grocery store where you buy food, you also have a shopping cart.
It's that thing that you push around, that you put the food into, so you don't have to carry it in your hands.
On a website, however, a shopping cart is the part of the website used to buy things.
Kay says they have installed a shopping cart and a secure way to process orders.
Secure, S-E-C-U-R-E, means safe.
And on the internet it means a place where your information, your name, your credit card, your address will be safe.
It won't get stolen.
Someone won't come and take it and use it somewhere else.
Kay says they have a secure way to process orders.
To process P-R-O-C-E-S-S orders means that you receive orders that people give you.
That is, things that they want to buy.
That's what an order is.
You say, I want to buy this.
To process them means to take care of them, to figure out who's going to get what and so forth.
In an online store, sometimes you are buying things that the company will send you in the mail.
Sometimes you're simply buying things that you download onto your computer.
Greg says we can use that system to track orders, right?
To track T-R-A-C-K orders means to make sure you know what's going on with the order at all times, whether it was paid for, whether it was shipped, that is, whether it was sent to the person who bought it.
In some cases, whether the person received it.
All of that would be part of tracking an order.
Processing the order means getting it ready to send.
Tracking the order means knowing what part of the process you are in.
Kay says, That's right.
All customer information will be captured and will have a database of information we can mine later.
To capture, C-A-P-T-U-R-E, here means to record, to save that information from the customer.
Capture has a number of different meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some of those.
Kay says they also have a database.
D-A-T-A-B-A-S-E.
A database is a computer program that saves and organizes information for you.
To mine M-I-N-E here, when we're talking about websites and databases, means to analyze a large amount of information, a large amount of data, to find interesting patterns.
So you might want to know whether people from this country are buying more on a weekend.
Then people from that country you could look at your database, your set of information, and mine it.
You could go in and try to find information by using other computer software.
Greg says, that's great.
We already have a place to house the inventory and a way to track it.
To house...
H-O-U-S-E something means to store it, to keep it until you are ready to use it.
So if you're selling books on your website, you would need a place to house the physical books.
You'd need a place to keep them.
The inventory I-N-V-E-N-T-O-R-Y refers to all of the things that you are selling, usually physical things.
So your inventory would be all of the books that you have that you are selling on your website, or all of the computers you have that you are selling on your website.
Kay says, right you are, meaning that's correct.
Now all we need is one last thing, one final thing.
Greg says, we need to find a product to sell.
Of course, normally when you have a store, you know what you're going to sell.
But Greg and Kay have built a website, but they don't have anything to sell yet.
Kay says, yeah, any ideas?
Greg says, no, none.
You?
Meaning, do you?
Kay says, nope.
An informal way of saying no.
But as soon as we do, we'll be the next big thing in e-commerce.
The next big thing is the most recent thing to become popular that everyone is talking about.
So a few years ago it was Facebook, and then it was Twitter, and then it was I don't know Pinterest.
Whatever the next most popular thing is, that's the next big thing.
E-commerce, E-C-O-M-M-E-R-C-E, refers to selling things on the internet.
Internet selling and buying.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I'd say we're well on our way to establishing our new online store.
I can't wait for this to get off the ground.
Orders will pour in and we'll make money hand over fist.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Let's see where we are in our preparations.
Alright, we've created a marketing plan that includes several ways to drive traffic to our website.
That's great.
We've also installed a shopping cart and a secure way to process orders.
We can use that system to track orders, right?
That's right.
All customer information will be captured and we'll have a database of information we can mine later.
That's great.
We already have a place to house the inventory and a way to track it.
Right you are.
Now all we need is one last thing.
We need to find a product to sell.
Yeah.
Any ideas?
No, none.
You?
Nope.
But as soon as we do, we'll be the next big thing in e-commerce.
Definitely.
If you've listened to several of our episodes, you are well on your way to improving your English.
Thanks to the wonderful scripts by Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
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 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
