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Man: Instead of making it a national campaign, which would allow Williams's rivals to instantly follow its price cuts, the company's ‘best deals', as they're called, vary from town to town, and change every week. The company employs five thousand distributors in order that, every week, a third of all the people living in the catchment area of a Williams store receive flyers through their doors, detailing these special offers. The price cuts are dramatic, like forty per cent off breakfast cereals, the same off bars of soap, fifty per cent off soft drinks, and so on. Indeed, many items are sold at below the cost to Williams.
男子：塔克尔并没有在全国范围内搞促销，因为这样一来威廉姆斯的竞争对手么立刻就能跟着降价，而是在不同城镇推不同的所谓“最惠商品”，而且每周都换。超市还特地招了5000人专门发传单，确保每家威廉姆斯超市覆盖范围内三分之一的人的家门前每周都能收到打折信息的传单。他们打折的力度也很夸张，早餐麦片六折，肥皂六折，软饮料五折等等。很多商品的确都是在亏本出售。
Shoppers seem to love it, as is evident from Williams's sales. But it's high risk: sales have to increase by enough to limit the impact on profits, and they have to be able to deliver the goods. That's harder than it sounds. Some of the products on offer fly out of the door, selling as much in a week as they normally would in a year. Organising adequate stock levels for that, on different products around the country, is a nightmare of logistics. What makes all this feasible, apart from very good planning, is that Williams's distribution system isn't centralized, unlike some of the other supermarket chains.
消费者们似乎很吃这一套，这一点从威廉姆斯的业绩上也能看出来。然而这样做也有很高的风险：只有销售总额达到一定规模这样亏本销售才不会影响利润，而且他们还要能够配送。配送是听起来容易做起来难。因为部分促销商品十分畅销，一周就能达到平时一年的销售额。要准备足够的仓储，而且不同地方还要准备不同的商品，对物流来说简直是个噩梦。让这一切变得可行的，除了十分明智的规划之外，还有一点就是威廉姆斯的配送系统并不是集中化的，不像其他一些超市连锁品牌。
Williams has just passed the first anniversary of its promotional campaign, so it'll be more and more difficult to keep sales rising. But the company's working hard to keep the momentum going with a renewed focus on fresh produce, having been tempted in recent years by clothing and electrical goods, which are both in highly competitive sectors. the company has also promised longer opening hours at their stores in order to increase convenience for their customers.
威廉姆斯刚刚举行了促销活动的周年纪念，所以要想保持业绩持续增长会越来越难。但超市正在将促销活动的注意力重新集中在新鲜农产品上，努力保住这一增长势头。而近年来超市偏向青睐服装和电子产品，因为两者都是竞争非常激烈的产品领域。超市还承诺为了方便顾客延长店铺营业时间。
Now let's compare Williams's success with one of their suffering rivals…
接下来，我们来比较一下威廉姆斯的成功和遭受损失的其他对手……
