LIFE IN RETAIL

I am sure all of you who are priveliged to work in retail have alot of stories to tell.

For me, living in a small town, alot of things have changed.  The people have changed, the friendly elderly customers whom you knew on a first name basis and remained very loyal to their local business, and never asked for discount have now departed and have been replaced with rude, intimidating, ruthless customers, who even though they produce a below cost price from a major supplier, some half an hour drive away, add the little "feel good" saying "we like to shop local", which is suppose to make all the difference, even though we can sometimes make next to zero profit and is cheaper than our employee price.

One of my fellow workers initiated a Top 10 list, which was a non written list of all the most painful customers. One customer, as soon as he made a step into the store demanded attention and proceded to butt in, whether you were already helping somebody else or not and was always in a hurry. He had one of our junior staff in tears and when the boss mentioned this to him, he was shocked and full of apology! He remains one of our Top 10.

One of my areas of sales is vacuum bags. Well I need to be like the contestant on "Australia's Got Talent", Anthony Laye, as they arrive in with no idea of brand, model etc and I am suppose to come up with the correct bags. Well today I had a male come in, who supposedly  knew the brand but that was all, he proceded to ask alot of questions and after trying to tell him countless times that in order to give him the correct bags, I needed more information but no after wasting at least 10 minutes of my valueable time, he chose a bag!  Not long after he phoned through and yes you guessed it, entirely different brand of vac and yes wrong bags!!!

Then there is the choosing of a kettle or toaster, well some customers including the male species proceed to lift every kettle lid and push down every toaster lever and then spend many minutes choosing. How hard is it to decide on a kettle or toaster, I ask myself that question over and over, I guess there is more choice these days but come on it can't be that hard!

Then there is the sales invoice, which we tell our customers to keep for warranty purposes. No, that is too hard, it is much easier to phone us and again waste time to look up the date of purchase etc.

But amongst all the bad customers, there are still alot of nice ones but sadly they are in fewer numbers.   

No, life in retail is not like it used to be and I am sure you fellow "retailers" have alot of stories to tell.