#retail issues
“Yes, we can ship your order to your house.”
“Is the shipping free?”
“No, there is a shipping fee, which is determined based on purchase amount. Since your order is under $40, shipping will be $5.99.”
“YOU DON’T SHIP FOR FREE?!”
“N… no… it’ll be $5.99 to ship your order.”
“But LL Bean and Amazon Prime ship for free! Why don’t you ship for free?!”
“Because we don’t.” We don’t build shipping costs into the costs of our products, nor do we charge you a monthly fee so you can get free shipping… in all these situations, you’re still paying for shipping. It’s just a matter of how you’re paying for that shipping…
“Well, how can I get you to ship this for free? Don’t you have a first time customer waiver or something?“
“Are you a first time customer?”
“No.”
“Then no. No, there’s nothing I can do. You’ll have to pay the $5.99 to ship this to your home on the other side of the country.
Customer walks up to my register holding a white napkin. She abruptly starts in, “Hi. I bought these jeans here a few months ago, and look!” She begins vigorously rubbing the napkin on the dark wash jeans she’s wearing, lifts the napkin and shows me that some of the dye has worn off onto the napkin. “IT’S BLUE!”
“Yes, I see that.”
“The dye is rubbing right off!”
“It does appear to be doing so.”
“I’ve washed these jeans several times since I bought them and they’re STILL rubbing color off onto things!”
“That particular brand did come with labels warning that the dye is very highly pigmented (as they are a high quality name brand) and that the dye may continue to transfer with initial washes.”
“This pair didn’t have that tag whenI bought them.”
“Are you looking to return the jeans?”
“Iruined my friend’s white couch because I wore these jeans when I went to her house! I was SO embarrassed! I was mortified!”
“Ma’am, are you looking to return the jeans? Do you want a new pair? Do you want a credit?”
“I washed them several times since I bought them and they’re still rubbing color off on everything! My LEGSareblueevery time I take them off! I would have expected this from cheap Target jeans but not from here. Not for how much I paid for these jeans.”
“Ma’am,what do you want me to do about this?”
…apparently nothing. Apparently she just wanted to complain about how the jeans were still turning everything blue… complain in front of eight other customers who were waiting in line to ring up their purchases.
“Nobody can find them anywhere,” this customer explains, “It’s like nobody makes them anymore. Those wonderful cool, crisp percale sheets. They’re just so cold when you first get into bed, and crisssp. Those wonderful 50/50 blends… and they never wrinkle. You just can’t find them anymore.”
“Well, we do sell percale sheets. They are 100% cotton though; we don’t sell any cotton polyester blend sheets, and the nature of percale weaves is that they will wrinkle.”
“Noo, I don’t want sheets that wrinkle.”
“The only sheets we sell that don’t wrinkle are the cotton sateen sheets.”
“Oh, I hate sateen. They’re too soft and they’re warm. Why doesn’t anybody make those wonderful crisp cool percales anymore? There’s SO MANY people looking for them. You wouldn’t believe it, but there’s a whole [web]page full of people looking for real percale sheeting! A whole PAGE!”
I’m honestly picturing this woman looking online and finding only one website where old ladies are talking about the percale sheets their mothers used and how they can’t find those types of sheets anywhere.
“We do have customers who prefer percales because they’re cooler and crisper than the sateen weaves. Most of our customers seem satisfied with our Italian percales or organic cotton percale sheets. However, they do wrinkle.”
“But I don’t want them to wrinkle!”
“Well, this is what we sell. Our only wrinkle free sheet is the cotton sateen, which is why that sheeting line is our most popular bedding collection. The only way to get a wrinkle free percale is to purchase a cotton/poly blend, and we only sell all cotton sheeting. That’s what our customer want. They’ve become very wary of synthetic fibers and chemicals, so the majority of our customers demand all natural fiber blends for our fabrics. This is why we carry the selection we carry.”
“But I want those cool crisp percales. I’m one of your customers.”
“Then I recommend you look into our Italian percales. It’s the closest in texture to the sheets (she brought in pillowcases of the sheets she’s trying to replace) you’re looking for.”
“I bet everything here is made in China, too.”
“Actually, we have percales that are made in Italy (I just fucking told you this… we don’t call it “Italian Percale” for shits and giggles), our organic percale is made in Portugal, we carried sheets made in France and Pakistan, etc…”
“Ooo, where are your French percales?”
“We don’t have any right now. We’ve carried them in the past - usually only in patterned styles.” I show her the style we currently have that’s made in Pakistan that is a near exact comparison between it and the French style.
“So, this one is made in France?”
“No, this one is made in Pakistan. It’s unchanged from how the original French sheeting in this pattern feels. Whenever I have customers looking for a classic, crisp percale, they usually prefer this texture.” She feels the fabric, hums, hahs, and finally agrees that she likes it.
“Where are your sheets like this?”
“We only have this pair of pillowcases. It’s a current item in our catalog, and since we’re an outlet we usually won’t get these new patterns unless they’re returned from catalog orders or discontinued.”
“Where are the regular sheets from France?”
“By regular do you mean solid colors?”
She looks at me like I’m stupid… so I continue, “We don’t carry the French fabric in solids. We only occasionally have it with seasonal patterns. If you want a solid color, I recommend the Italian percale. It’s the closest in texture to these pillowcases.” I show her a discontinued brown pillowcase in the Italian percale pointing out, “We’re no longer producing this color, so we’ve marked it down for clearance. It’s $29 from $79.”
“Do you have that in any other colors?”
“Yes, but those other colors are still current and therefore full price at $79.”
“Well, I can see why that color is marked down. It’s awful.” Beggars can’t be choosers, woman. She goes on complaining, “Oh, why don’t they make those wonderful percales anymore? It’s not like nobody wants them. There’s a whole page of people looking for them! Even on facebook - people keep saying they have to go to yard sales to find those perfect percale sheets. Imagine it - YARD SALES!”
I finally get her over to the register. She’s decided to get the percale pillowcase from Pakistan, but she’s still grumbling about the price and how she’s worried these aren’t going to be the most wonderful pillowcases ever… “If you’re unhappy with them,” I reassure her, “just hang onto your receipt, and you’ll have thirty days to return the pillowcases and get your money back.” She purchases the pillowcases, and keeps mumbling her way out the door how nobody makes wonderful percales sheets anymore that are cool, crisp, and never wrinkle…
Helping a customer while she’s looking at duvet covers. She’s the type of customer who doesn’t necessarily need help shopping, but she keeps talking to you anyway because she… well… likes someone to talk to.
She stops when she gets to this particular blue duvet cover - it’s a textured style that has this stretchy bubble ruching all over the top, which makes the comforter look fuller on the bed. She stops and begins explaining, “I bought this duvet cover a few months back, and I love your products, but I’ve never been more disappointed with one of your products than with that cover. It’s just huge. I bought the queen size for my queen sized comforter, and I swear it must hang at least five inches extra on both sides of the comforter. The comforter just swims inside the cover. Oh! I’m just sooodisappointed…”
She goes on like this for twenty minutes, going onto other topics and then coming back to how disappointed she is with that bubble duvet cover. I look at her and suggest, “Why don’t you just return it?” The woman looks at me in shock, “…I cando that?” I’m thinking, Psssh, yeah.Everybody else does. “Yeah, just let me see if I can find your purchase in our system (I was able to), and we’ll give you a store credit for the amount you paid. You can then use that credit towards buying a duvet cover you’d be more happy with - like that daisy pattern you were looking at earlier.”
The woman’s eyes widen, “…but I’ve been using the cover. I’ve washed it, but I’ve been using it. You’ll still take it back?”
”Yeah, I mean… we won’t resell it. You bought it eight months ago. We’re not going to resell it. It’s just going to go away…”
She pauses, looks at me (still somewhat in shock) and adds, “…but that means you’ll be losing money on that sale, right? I mean, if I return it, use the credit to buy a new cover, and then my old cover just gets sent to trash. Your company will be losing money.”
“I suppose that’s true. However, you seem to be really unhappy with your prior purchase, so this is what we can do for you so you’ll go home with a product you’re happy with.”The woman was so incredibly happy that this was an option for her. I was still terribly amused that it never occurred to her that she could return the cover even after having used it… hell, we’ve had enough people use bedding for nearly a decade and return it expectingthey’ll get their money back or be able to exchange it for replacements.
Sometimes it’s refreshing to offer such services for customers who seemingly don’t expect they’ll get those benefits.
The woman is suuuuper chatty though. She stopped in again today, and she talked with four different associates before coming to a decision on her purchase. She’s pretty nice. Just a little time consuming.
We recently had to do price changes on a bunch of our core products, during which we check inventory levels to make sure the counts are correct. Process took a couple days between four or five associates.
A couple of us longer standing employees had to recount everything that had discrepancies, which was made more annoying by the fact that most of the issues stemmed from incomplete paperwork. A couple people who worked on these markdowns didn’t circle their found quantities, and we can’t assume the physical quantities match what inventory says we have.
Nothing like having to spend your time doing someone else’s job over so it’s done correctly. Work stress over stupid shit that could be avoided combined with monthly hormonal imbalances, and pretty much…
Because comfort eating solves life problems, right?
Minor annoyance. Occasionally I’d ring up a customer who happens to be buying one or two small items. Our town has a ban on plastic bags, so the store offers flat paper bags or two sizes of paper handled bags that we’re only supposed to use for larger orders. So, I’ll grab the appropriate sized flat bag for the small order, slide the items into the bag, fold down the edges, and this is when the customer decides to ask,…
“Ohhh, can I have a handled bag instead? Thanks.”
I just wrapped up your order, and now you think it’s the perfect time to reject the bagging method? Mhmmm… ‘kay.Unfolds small flat bag, takes items out, puts items into smallest handle bag that is still 90% empty bag with the stuff in it, so those two items are just haphazardly sliding from one end of the bag to the other when moved.
I’ve had customers buy one small bottle of hand soap or one package of underwear (it’s just one pair in a 4″x6″ package), and the customer requests an 11″ x 16″ handled bag when we have a flat bag specifically sized for small carry-out items like this. You’re going back out to your car.Wutchu need all that bag for? Just take the damn bag I put the thing in and be done with it.
