📙 Part 2: Describe a website that sells second-hand items

This episode's vocabulary

For some reason or another (phrase) – for an unknown or unspecified reason. → The meeting was cancelled for some reason or another, but nobody told me why.

Picked up on (phrasal verb) – to learn about or become aware of something informally. → I picked up on the new software by watching my colleagues use it.

Word of mouth (noun phrase) – information passed from person to person through conversation. → The restaurant became popular mainly through word-of-mouth recommendations.

Ever since (phrase) – continuously from a particular time in the past until now. → I visited Paris in 2018 and have wanted to return ever since.

Plethora of (noun phrase) – an excessive or abundant amount of something. → There's a plethora of online courses available for language learners.

Go awry (phrasal verb) – to go wrong or not according to plan. → Despite careful planning, things can still go awry at the last minute.

Can't be bothered (phrase) – unwilling to make the effort to do something. → I can't be bothered to cook tonight, so I'll just order takeaway.

Get my hands on (idiom) – to obtain or acquire something. → I've been trying to get my hands on that book for months.

Seek redress (verb phrase) – to try to correct an unfair situation or obtain compensation. → Customers can seek redress through the company's complaints procedure.

Truth be told (phrase) – to be completely honest. → Truth be told, I wasn't entirely satisfied with the results.

Hassle-free (adjective) – without difficulty or inconvenience. → Online shopping is much more hassle-free than visiting crowded stores.

Browse through (phrasal verb) – to look through items casually without commitment. → I like to browse through bookshops on weekends even if I don't buy anything.

Convenient (adjective) – fitting well with one's needs or making life easier. → The new metro station is extremely convenient for commuters.

Impulse purchase (noun phrase) – something bought without planning or consideration. → I made an impulse purchase and regretted it later when the bill arrived.

Value for money (noun phrase) – worth the price paid. → The course was expensive but offered excellent value for money.

Questions and Answers

Maria: You should say what it is, how you found out about it, what people can buy from it, and explain whether you like it or not.

Rory: Well, I buy a lot of books from Amazon, so I suppose I should talk about that site. I'm sure you'll have heard of it since it's part of a massive global company. They're always in the papers, for some reason or another. But briefly, it's a sort of website where you can buy and sell various items from books to computers to clothes. They even have their own media service, I think, which is very interesting.

Despite all that variety, though, I think the company actually got started with a focus on selling second-hand books, which is, like I say, what I normally use it for. I think I just picked up on it from word of mouth decades ago, and I've been using it to get used books ever since. Those aren't the only things you can get there. Like I said, there's a plethora of stuff that you can pick up. Though I'm not very confident about buying other second-hand goods. It's less of an issue of the site, though, and just more my personal dislike of doing so. Not much can go wrong with a second-hand book, but plenty can go awry with an old computer that someone's used. It could start having all kinds of problems, and there's no way to really fix it. Or if there are, then it would just be very complicated, and I can't be bothered.

To explain more about how I feel about it, it's good to be able to get my hands on books with relative ease, and there's a wide variety of products and prices are good, and the delivery service is pretty reliable, as are the various ways you can give feedback and seek redress for when things do go wrong, which isn very often, truth be told. There are used bookstores close to where I live, but none of them have a stock that is that great, and the prices seem much higher. If that weren't the case, I'd happily use them, but for the moment, it seems like all I have is Amazon. If it weren't for them, then I'd definitely have a much more limited range in terms of my reading choices.

Maria: And what about your friends? Do they use this shop?

I'm pretty sure, just given the number of boxes that they seem to have in their homes from Amazon.