Shopping and services

Shopping is closely related to the “consumer society”. Consumer society is a society in which material goods are very important and also consumers themselves have a lot of power.
In the past people used to buy mostly staple food, e.g. fruit, vegetable, meat and bread. They used to buy them in local shops in cities or villages where they lived and carried the goods home in heavy bags.
Today people prefer going to large department stores and buy everything they need under one roof. They especially buy the food for longer period because they have big freezers and microwaves at home. Meals such as pizza, pies and many other dishes can be taken out of freezers, heating up and preparation takes only a few minutes. There is growing trend for people to go shopping less often and fill their cars with enough food.

As for shopping facilities in Slovakia the situation has changed since 1989, there has been growing number of supermarkets, hypermarkets or Shopping centres (malls AmE) which are situated in cities and have large car parks. Many supermarkets have cash dispensers, and cafes. Shopping in hypermarkets obviously saves the time and is comfortable. They often offer additional services, like a post office, banks offering loans and insurance and tourist agencies. There are also restaurants and cafés in them where you can relax after finishing up your shopping. Some even have large cinemas (Polus City Centre, Aupark), and some people only go to the mall to see films.