跟读练习: Why Retailers Are Shrinking Their Assortments - 通过视频学习英语口语

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Retailers across the board are slashing assortments.

You may notice when a product is no longer carried at your favorite store or online.

And when companies start talking about it on their earnings calls, you know it's happening at a wider scale.

SKUs, or stock keeping units, are unique codes assigned to every product to keep track of inventory.

Let's say you want to buy this jacket.

Its SKU number might indicate the manufacturer, product type, color, and size, with a series of numbers and letters.

Companies like Dollar General, BJ's Wholesale Club, Lululemon, and Under Armour are either planning to cut

or have already cut skews at their stores in an effort to improve their financials.

But how can intentionally reducing the number of products, and in some cases even intentionally shrinking revenue, ultimately help a business turn things around?

amount.

Public companies typically want to show investors growth, quarter after quarter.

And one of the ways brands can grow sales is by adding more products.

But what happens when those products don't sell?

Well, it can lead to discounting, which in turn hurts profitability.

That product can also end up at off -price stores like TJ Maxx, which can hurt a brand's reputation.

If you have zero discounting, you're not taking enough fashion risk.

If you're not taking enough fashion risk, why do you exist?

And so you absolutely need to discount.

But discounting needs to be fixing mistakes.

It needs to be done quickly.

It needs to be done somewhat invisibly.

And then we need to move on.

There's a reason I believe the off -pricers are such compelling business models.

TJ, Ross Stores.

These businesses allow companies, allow big brands to sell product invisibly.

When a brand isn't selling its products at full price, that means less profit.

It's one of the reasons Lululemon has been struggling lately.

From 2024 to 2025, the company grew sales by about $500 million, yet its operating profit fell by about $300 million.

The company acknowledged the negative impact of markdowns in recent earnings calls.

It said it cut North American SKUs by 15%.

You can reduce assortments and then try to make up for that revenue by selling more of your signature items.

Or a brand can acknowledge that its revenues need to shrink too.

The goal here is to increase the price of your remaining products, in turn selling less of them, but making more profit on each one.

Lulu has a long way to go.

And simply cutting skews, simply saying we need to have better product is not the answer if you're too large.

The absolute best product can still be dilutive if there's too much of it in the market.

And Lulu last year did $6 .5 billion of American sales.

3 to 4 billion dollars in revenue is where companies generally hit a healthy saturation level.

It's a level where they can be large and still cool.

Nike is an exception to this rule.

One of the reasons why is because of its ability to sell distinctively different brands, like Jordan.

While the company doesn't specifically break out its U .S sales, it did around 20 billion dollars in North America in 2025.

Nike is in the midst of a massive downturn, and while it's almost certainly not going to bring domestic sales down to that $3 -4 billion level,

it's actively working to clean up its product offerings.

We made meaningful progress across the business through rebalancing the product portfolio, driving momentum and growth in performance,

while reducing classic footwear franchises by more than $2 billion.

For big box stores like BJ's and small box stores like Dollar General, the goal of assortment reduction is different.

These retailers carry thousands of individual brands

so removing certain products is more of a defensive move it simplifies inventory management

and allows stores to refine what they're offering from a brand perspective

if you were of something the more expensive it can be

when you shrink a box when you take a retailer

and say i'm going to focus more on curation you're getting smaller

but you're trying to re -establish why someone's walking into your box in the first place

and so it does get better but it doesn't necessarily help your bottom line as much, it's more protecting.

In an earnings call from June 2025, Dollar General said the elimination of 1 ,000 SKUs from the

previous year opened up more shelf space for its best -selling products.

By March 2026, the SKU reductions reached over 1 ,500 products, which the company said provided benefits to the overall supply chain.

The team is looking at continued SKU rationalization, albeit probably more surgical in nature as we move forward

but it is still our ultimate goal to grow sales at or above the rate of inventory growth overall.

Reducing assortments is much easier said than done.

Box stores risk losing customers to competitors with more offerings.

BJ's actually acknowledged that a previous attempt to cut SKUs was unsuccessful.

We didn't prosecute that opportunity in the right way.

We just cut SKUs, which cut sales, and then we added some SKUs back and

so really what we're doing is removing unnecessary choice think about traditional soda we don't carry cans

and two liters of the same product anymore For individual brands, on the other hand, cutting revenue can be intentional.

Under Armour's stock is down significantly over the past five years.

Its revenue has also fallen by nearly a billion dollars, and its operating income, a key measure of profitability, has turned negative over the past couple of years.

Under Armour shrunk their skews by 25 % over the past few years and plans to cut another 25%.

In an August 2026 earnings call, the company acknowledged that its problems would not be solved by chasing unhealthy sales volume

or short -term revenue today we're managing for quality fewer products with greater purpose tighter execution

and a clearer reason to buy this mandate to the organization is incredibly straightforward real will sell

so much more of so many less products at a much higher full retail price under armor feels like it has

tried many times it's had multiple fits and starts of acknowledging that it may be a better business as a smaller business, and those are the words that management says,

so far in the results, it seems very much a working process.

But it's hard.

You can't shrink in a half measure because it's very hard to do, and the worst thing you could do is try and give up.

Cutting products can also make a brand less accessible.

If, for example, you cannot afford to shop at a store paying full price but frequent their clearance section, the company may lose you as a customer as they work to reduce markdowns.

And that may be deliberate, despite how difficult it may be to turn away that additional revenue, because your discounted purchase wasn't a very profitable sale for the company in the first place.

It's hard for a company ever to say we need to shrink anything, but it's dramatically harder to say we need to shrink revenues.

For brands, the more people you get, the less exciting the story becomes.

For more people you get, the less specialized the product becomes.

And so, so frequently we find that brands hit a peak, a healthy peak, extend past the peak by forcing it, and then find their way back down pretty harshly.

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本课的词汇与口语要点

这节口语课以视频“Why Retailers Are Shrinking Their Assortments”为素材。视频中反复出现的词有：product, brand, Sku, revenue, sale。这段视频共有 47 个句子、1233 个单词可供跟读。讲话部分时长为 7:01。说话人语速自然，每分钟约 176 个词，接近日常对话。 84% 的单词属于英语最常用的 3,000 词，其余的词建议在练习前先学一下。

视频中的重点词汇

视频中 15 个值得学习的单词，附发音和释义：

单词	发音	释义
discount 名词	/ˈdɪskaʊnt/	折扣
acknowledge 动词	/əkˈnɑ.lɪd͡ʒ/	承認 /承认
earnings 名词		收益, 收入
inventory 名词	/ˈɪn.vən.tɹi/	庫存 /库存, 儲存 /储存
retailer 名词	/ˈɹiteɪlɚ/	零售商
reduction 名词	/ɹɪˈdʌk.ʃən/	還原 /还原, 還原作用 /还原作用
intentionally 副词	/ɪnˈtɛn(t)ʃənəli/	故意, 蓄意
necessarily 副词	/ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/	必然地, 必定地
reputation 名词	/ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/	名譽 /名誉, 聲譽 /声誉
chase 动词	/t͡ʃeɪs/	追逐, 追
solve 动词	/sɒlv/	解決 /解决
exception 名词	/əkˈsɛpʃən/	排除
indicate 动词	/ˈɪndɪˌkeɪt/	表明, 表示
jacket 名词	/ˈd͡ʒæk.ɪt/	夾克 /夹克, 上衣
fewer	/ˈfjuː.ɚ/	較少 /较少, 更少

视频中出现的短语动词

单词	释义
back down 动词	做出讓步 /做出让步
break out 动词	逃出
give up 动词	投案, 自首

视频中的语法

说话人最常用的结构，并附上视频中的原话：

结构	视频中的用法
被动语态 be + 过去分词 — 强调发生了什么，而不是谁做的	be done · would not be solved
现在完成时 have/has + 过去分词 — 过去发生但与现在仍有关联的事	have already cut · has also fallen

需要注意的发音

说话人用了 17 次缩略和弱读形式，例如 you're, doesn't, don't。请按听到的简短形式来说。

“sh” 和 “zh” 音: reduction /ɹɪˈdʌk.ʃən/, intentionally /ɪnˈtɛn(t)ʃənəli/, reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/, exception /əkˈsɛpʃən/, execution /ˌɛk.sɪˈkjuː.ʃən/
长单词——注意重音位置: intentionally /ɪnˈtɛn(t)ʃənəli/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, execution /ˌɛk.sɪˈkjuː.ʃən/

中文母语者容易读错的音：

/v/ — 不要读成 /w/，上齿轻触下唇: inventory /ˈɪn.vən.tɹi/, solve /sɒlv/, defensive /dɪˈfɛn.sɪv/, actively /ˈæktɪvli/, investor /ɪnˈvɛs.tə(ɹ)/
词尾辅音 — 要读清楚，后面不要加元音: discount /ˈdɪskaʊnt/, acknowledge /əkˈnɑ.lɪd͡ʒ/, chase /t͡ʃeɪs/, solve /sɒlv/, defensive /dɪˈfɛn.sɪv/
/r/ 和 /l/ 的区别: retailer /ˈɹiteɪlɚ/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, profitable /ˈpɹɑ.fɪ.tə.bl̩/, deliberate /dɪˈlɪb.(ə.)ɹət/

如何用这段视频练习

先完整听一遍视频，不要开口，记下不认识的单词。
先用 0.75 倍速逐句跟读，熟练之后再回到正常速度。
录下自己的声音并与原声对比，特别注意 discount, acknowledge, earnings 这类单词。

什么是跟读法？

跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。

影子跟读法: 阅读完整分步指南 →

跟读练习: Why Retailers Are Shrinking Their Assortments - 通过视频学习英语口语

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