The Retail Experience

Good Evening Everyone!

Most of us have experienced the crush of holiday shopping at one time or another. Whether it was Black Friday sales or the weekend of any lessor  holiday, chances are, you have memories of at least one shopping nightmare or inconvenience.
At the same time there are many wonderful experiences with those we meet while shopping. I remember a year ago when I started back to work with a high end retailer. I was afraid that kids who came shopping with their parents were going to make the Christmas season long and miserable. As luck would have it, the kids were the FUNNIEST little people who came into the store during the entire month of December of 2019!

One little guy whispered loudly to me: "Hey lady! Can you get these people out of our way? We gotta get this gift home and hide it from my dad before he gets home!"

The eight people in front of him and his mother in line were laughing and so impressed with his take charge attitude on behalf of his mother, they let them go first so they could get home in time! If you enjoy social interaction with Christmas shoppers, it is definitely worth it to be out and about. 

Of course there are those customers who chat while standing in line for twenty minutes and then have nothing ready when it is their turn.  

You can be held up waiting while Grandma pays her credit card bill.  You cringe as she pulls out her sandwich baggie (Not a Ziplock, but the kind they back in the 60s that folded over.) and slowly untwists it and starts counting change for part of the bill, writing a check for another part, and struggles to figure out which end of the debit card has the chip as she inserts and re-inserts the card several times to pay the remaining balance.  

As if all of the noisy shoppers weren't annoying enough, the beep from the card machine can make you want to jump off of the nearest bridge.  As the card owner chats away, the machine nearly blows up as it waits for them to pull the damn card out.  

If you are in a particularly old establishment, you may witness ghost activity.  Yes, I said it.  And it does exist.  Mannequins move on their own, pictures fall from their perch after years of sitting still, clothing goes flying, whispers can be heard, doors suspiciously open or close, a strange hand will touch you in a fitting room, something will pull your hair and customers will tell you they saw any number of other strange things not listed here.

If customers hadn't witnessed some of these supernatural events, I might think I was going coocookachoo.  But they happen.  And much more often than we would all like to think.  

When you tally up the list of events taking place in retail establishments and watch the news about shootings in public, is it any wonder the world is turning to online ordering?  However, Americans are a sturdy lot.  They push on with their shopping and great love of spending and here we are!  

As you shop for gifts throughout 2020s round of holidays, may I ask a favor?  Someone has to clean up after you in the fitting room with not enough people to help or time to do it before the doors open in the morning.  Please at least get the garments back on the hangers.  You don't even have to put them away.  If you would just get it all out of the room and onto the rack provided in the fitting room suite; there is a clerk somewhere who would be ever so grateful.

See you at the register.  😎

The Retail Goddess