Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Combative shopping?

Reared from an early age on marathon mall trips with my mom and aunts, I did not anticipate that I would ever tire of the physical act of shopping. But these days, I'm dismayed by the growing lack of civility between shoppers and sales clerks.

Think I'm being dramatic? Witness a recent encounter shared by a friend:

K was shopping at an upscale Lake Norman boutique and had tried on a designer dress that didn't quite fit. She told the sales clerk, who responded, “Well, maybe that can be your goal – to fit in that dress.”

Oh no, no, no. Read Thursday's Style section for more tips on how to diffuse shopping rage.

Shoppers and salespeople, share your shopping story here ... good or bad!

4 comments:

  1. WOW! Perhaps you could post the stores name for us so that we can make sure we don't shop there and with any luck they'll go out of business! I guess their sales people don't know that if you compliment your customers instead of embarrass them, you'll sell more items! This is a perfect example of why i prefer to purchase my items online!

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  2. That makes me cringe. I had a similar experience when looking for jeans at a department store (whose name starts with a "D"). The sales person kept steering me toward "Tummy Tuck" jeans or some such thing. (I'm a size 6 or 4 on a good day.) Apparently, there was some sort of bonus for the sales people to sell said brand.

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  3. Oh, HELL no! That is unacceptable. I would never shop there again.

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  4. I recently had a great experience at the Nine West store in Northlake. The sales people were super nice and helpful and it was laid back and friendly. I even emailed the store to tell them what a nice experiece i had. But then I went to a certain bridal shop who shall remain nameless.....and I was up at the register paying for my dress and the phone rang. It was a woman who wanted to speak to a manager about her dress on special order and how she needed it sooner and the three employees in there were like "well you can't" and they were belittling her on the phone and then when they hung up they said "well just for that, now she's not getting her dress early". And I thought oh crap, why am I buying my dress here if that's how they treat their customers!

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