Subscribe
Please Don’t Touch the Merchandise
Author: Sarah Beckley
January 29, 2007
In my last post, I told you how much I disliked shopping in stores before the holidays. After the holidays, I had a few gift cards to dispose of, so I reluctantly made the rounds. The stores seemed to be just as crowded as before, probably due to people taking advantage of the post-holiday sales and their days off of work.
I actually gave up and didn’t even try anything on while I was in the mall, but I did browse a few stores on my way out. Sadly, the store that made the largest impression on me did so only because it was full of unhappy little signs. Each sign was a stern command not allowing something—no cell phones, no trying on earrings, no more than three children at a time in the store, no stuffing merchandise into your pockets. Well, ok, the last one wasn’t written exactly that way, but that was the gist of it.
The store clearly had a shoplifting problem, but I doubt that all the mean signs reduced their losses. Frankly, if I were a prickly 15-year-old, they probably would have spurred me to get away with as much merchandise as possible. I am not a security expert, so I don’t know what steps they should be taking to protect themselves, but I can tell you that I didn’t buy anything in that store, nor will I go back there again.
In France, it is the custom to greet the store owner with a formal, "Bonjour, Monsieur" (or Madame or Mademoiselle, as appropriate)–a very friendly and old-fashioned custom. I’ve also read that if a store owner can get a customer to say “Hello” to them and look them in the eye, the likelihood of a theft plummets.
This doesn’t surprise me at all. It just makes me sad that we don’t do more to promote connecting with customers instead of chastising them.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Just move to france
Comment by Robert Minsonsos — February 18, 2007 @ 3:40 am