Bargain shopping fun!

Due to more corporate mismanagement, our brilliant promotion featuring the ever so popular $5 backpacks with a purchase of $50 or more has been extended for another 2 weeks. Yippee. You can just see the excitement in the faces of all the retail staff. These sorts of promotions always bring in our favourite, big spending customers.

I think they decided to extend the promotion to get more mileage out of the posters they printed for all the stores in Australia. That and the fact that we didn't even receive any of the coloured promotional backpacks until a few days after the stated end of the sale. And even then, we only received selected colours. My new store (I've been moved again), Innaloo, only received white, dark green, and a handful of light blue and light and dark pink. So we missed out on receiving black, orange, yellow, more navy and whatever other colours they advertised. So of the huge backlog of backorders that we sceptically took, some customers will be pretty angry that we don't have all the colours. And then there's the ongoing grief we'll be faced with when the bargain shopper customers, at the POS, announce that they'd like X colour backpack. Great.

This isn't the first time that stock has been so delayed for a promotion that The Company has been forced/pressured to extend it. But of course, once it's past the stated end of the promotion, many customers don't bother coming back. There have been countless catalogues since the start of the year, where the stock has not arrived at all in time for the catalogue, and The Company printed out "apology" posters for us to put up in stores. No public apology was made, nothing printed in the newspapers or aired on television though. As if! That would be some unwanted bad publicity...

I have come to the conclusion that since The Company has decided to lower the prices on the majority of our stock, and then not provide us with decent amounts of stocks to sell (say, 60-odd styles of women's shoes and 4 pairs of each left) it's not the customers' fault that they're shopping for reduced stock. It's all reduced! Well, the majority of it anyway. But that doesn't make me any more eager to serve them! Our stores are set out so that it is easy for the customers to serve themselves, and of course, all our stock is on the floor so obviously, mid month of the beginning of spring, we're not going to have any more heavily reduced winter jackets "out the back". These kinds of promotions bring in the customers that will just buy a jacket/item because it's cheap, regardless of whether it's the right size. They buy the items in whatever bigger size that's left and wear them, a size or two too big. Looks ridiculous in my opinion, but hey, what would I know about fashion? I work at The Company.

We're also in the process of sending out more discontinued and current stock to the clearance stores, so our stores will be pretty much empty (or 30% capacity) until we receive some summer stock. No, still no short sleeved shirts or polos or sandals. We will of course, receive more of the stock we send out to clearance, back again, adding to more time wasted packing and unpacking stock.

So none of our retail stores have yet received any spring/summer stock, but we all know that the clearance stores are overloaded with the stuff. Checking out the online store on The Company website, I can get a fair indication of what we will soon be bombarded with. Going from 30% capacity, The Company will surely then take the opportunity to fill our near-empty stores with 40 boxes of stock in one delivery. That was just what happened at the beginning of the year, when we had no stock after Christmas/stocktake sales, as warehouse staff were on holidays or they didn't want to send us 'unnecesary' or 'non-priority' stock during a busy sales period. We had nothing to sell!

- Update -

Well, I bit the bullet and finally sent through the angry feedback about the unfairness of not getting paid to cash up. It was a long email, and I won't reprint it here, more info later. I sent it through on Thursday night, and apparently, staff at head office were so alarmed by the content of it, and that I referred to the low morale of staff in stores, that they immediately called my store, Innaloo on Friday, and spoke to Caroline for about half an hour! Caroline's great and has been with The Company for about 7 years or more, as a manager and now casual. She's trained a great deal of now Area Managers, managers and casual staff in her time, and I'm sure she gave them an appropriate earful! Oh, I hope it gets published and I hope they do follow it up with me, as I would certainly welcome the opportunity to discuss my grievances.

Stuck up or just prioritising?

The Company sells smaller, cheaper items as 'add ons' like accessories. The latest craze is socks and men's undies. Fair enough, you see this at many boutiques. 'Expensive cashmere socks with your extravagantly overpriced wool suit, sir?' - But our socks and jocks are cheap. VERY cheap. Competitive with your chain department stores like Kmart and Target.

When customers walk into my store and head straight for the sock/undies stand, I may greet them but that's as far as it goes, in my concern. Honestly, how much help do you want me to offer picking out your undies? I am saving not only myself embarrassment, but you too. Appreciate that I have your best interests in mind when I let you look at the undies alone. I'm not a 'hoverer' or 'stalker' salesperson.

My apparent ignoring of selected customers goes against The Company's strict-when-it-suits-them customer service policy, where we are expected to assist and reapproach each and every customer after an initial greeting. But really, I have no interest trying to assist people with colours and sizes of undies. In my opinion, it's not very hard. They are sized S, M, L, XL. Really, it depends on how you want them to fit- loose, or comfortable. So provided you know what size pants you wear (a shocking number of men don't), it's not that difficult, really.

Ever seen this ad? I cracked up laughing when it aired in Australia.

My reluctance to assist in the fitting of underwear is similar and related to my reluctance to assist people only looking at the sales racks. In my experience, the customers who only ask for sales items don't spend much. And often pester you with asking annoying (to me) questions: if this (pick up current season item received 2 days ago) is reduced. Or this one. How much is this reduced to? What else have you got on sale? And why aren't they reduced? So the list goes on. I know it's my job to be there and assist the customers, hence the title "sales assistant". But hear me out, I am also interested in SALES.

Small sales mean no commission. I am not completely driven by commission, I am also interested in the daily and weekly store budgets as well. I know small sales also count towards reaching our sales targets, but really, when you break down the budgets as well, we are only allowed a certain number of hours for staffing for a set budget. So if I've got a store full of people and have a gentleman looking to buy a whole outfit and a few pairs of work shoes, and another customer puzzled by the colours, sizings and fittings of the underwear and socks, who do you think I'll spend more time with? It's not that hard to pick out a few cheap $6 tshirts in several colours and sizes and try them on yourself, is it. It is much harder to find sizes and styles of shoes for different needs.

I've had ladies stay in the store for almost an hour trying on plain tshirts. Can't decide between different colours and the sizes available. I was aching to go to the toilet and go on my lunch break, being the only person on all day, I had to shut the store for any break. So Ms Indecisive is having a major dilemma choosing between COLOURS of some STUPID tshirts!

"Which colour do you think is nicer?"
"Do you think this colour looks better against my skin, or this one?"
"What do you think of the sizes of this tshirt/singlet?"
"Oh, you have more colours! (Yes, we have about FIFTEEN) I'll go try this one on as well"
"I think this one is nice, I already have another bag that will match this top nicely. But I like the other size better. I'll go and try it on again."
"Oh, I just can't decide. What would you choose?" I'm thinking, who cares, just buy them all and come back and refund them tomorrow, I really don't give a stuff. But of course, I can't verbalise this. Which just leads to our frustration. Bottling up all that rage is not very helpful.

Ms Indecisive stayed for at LEAST 45 minutes. Total spend on cheap (price and quality-wise) tshirts? About $50. And the amount of assistance required was mind numbing. Thank you Ms Indecisive with the Gucci handbag. I don't think I ended up being able to have lunch or even go to the toilet until about 3:30 that day. That does NOT make for a happy sales assistant.

So my sister says I'm stuck up, and have become increasingly more so since I started working at The Company. But I say, I'm just prioritising, and trying to keep sane in this company, which seems to attract the most chemically unbalanced people I've ever had the misfortune to encounter.

The inner workings of The Company

When I first started at The Company just over 2 years ago, it was well regarded in the retail industry. I would tell friends I worked at The Company and they'd respond: 'Wow, isn't that place really expensive?' Or, having never heard of The Company or being unfamiliar with its products, I would explain that it's an Australian company, some products are made locally and the men's and women's shoes range from about $60-$130. Shirts and pants around $60-70. Pretty reasonable, so I thought at the time. I used to be proud to announce that I'd got a job at The Company.

Our target demographic was middle aged, maybe 30s-50s, and we had quite a loyal customer base and many customers, especially the men, would "only wear The Company shoes/shirts" according to their wives! Customer service was paramount and we were all well trained at being able to offer excellent service and product knowledge. I was impressed. There were not many other stores that I knew of that would require its staff to know about clothing fibres and materials, construction methods, sole materials, fittings and the like. We are expected to offer this kind of service and knowledge to each customer we serve.

However, though the people in upper management haven't changed too much (as far as I know, they are very secretive, more on this later) The Company is now moving in a different direction. We have two kinds of stores: smaller retail stores usually located in shopping centres or shopping strips - full price items, full service stores that offer lay-by, orders, and superior customer service and then there are our larger clearance stores usually in outer areas (think Kmart size, in rural areas) - self serve, different ranges of stock, 'what's there is what you get' and discontinued and damaged stock. Clearance stores are supposed to only carry discontinued items sent from the retail stores. That is why they are so heavily discounted, right? Not all sizes or colours are available, it's just the luck of the draw. At least, that's how it was when I first started.

Now for some incomprehensible reason and seemingly in blatant disregard of federal legislation and fair trading policies, The Company has decided to bring out the SAME stock in the clearance stores as the retail stores. So now they are in direct competition with us, though we are in fact one and the same company. We just have hugely different prices. Yes, that's right folks, same products, different prices. No, the stock at clearance is usually not faulty. For example, early on in winter this year, we had men's suede jackets in retail stores for $170. Fair enough, a cow (or 2) had to die for that jacket. In the clearance stores, which are inching closer and closer to us, geographically, they were selling for $100. Is that the price you put on a cow's life? Anyhow, the main problems with the changing nature of the clearance stores were:

• they stock the same current season products as we do
• they are heavily discounted (40% or more)
• they have full size ranges, and plenty of stock
• they are advertised in campaigns as being new in and heavily discounted
  
• THEY GET THE STOCK BEFORE WE DO!

Just using one's common sense, it would seem illogical and anti-competitive to be selling items at clearance prices, marked down from retail prices, when those items have not even arrived at retail stores for sale.

Take for example any designer store or regular boutique like Wayne Cooper or Marc Jacobs or whatever. They have retail concept stores in prime positions in shopping centres or shopping strips in the city, etc. They all stock new season stock which is full price and rotated regularly, so say, once a particular dress has been in store for 5 weeks or what have you, they then move on to new styles and send whatever is left over of that style of dress to their clearance stores. The clearance stores are in outer areas and/or in warehouses to keep costs down. They stock gear that has been discontinued, right? Fair enough. Not all sizes are available.

As the stock in clearance stores is heavily reduced, obviously they will sell well and be popular, seeing as it is the same quality and has the same 'brand name' and reputation as what you are buying from the boutiques. It's just a matter of whether you can get your size/colour/etc in what's available. Yes, you are paying our wages by shopping retail and paying for the higher overheads like rent, fixtures, etc. So, seeing this, The Company has figured that they could probably increase their profit margins by turning over more stock in the clearance stores. How do they do this? Bring in more stock, regular supplies and sizes, popular, current season stock, and heavily reduce it. Advertising helps as well. I must admit, they have been quite successful in this aspect.

So the clearance stores' sales have taken off. Bright idea: let's open up more. That'll further increase profits. But what to stock them with? There can only be so much 'discontinued' or past season stock with so many retail stores. So they decide that the clearance stores must sell something, so for some asinine reason, they stock them with the same products as they do us. Obviously, that has killed our sales. With the opening of more and more clearance stores, and some in ridiculously close proximity to the retail stores (try 400m down the road), it is only understandable that there will be the inevitable customer confusion and loss of sales.

So what has The Company done to remedy the situation? Close down the retail stores, as they're not making money. In the past month, 2 retail stores in Victoria have been shut down. One of them was a flagship store in the biggest shopping complex in the Southern Hemisphere. Sure, they increased the lease (exponentially, one would imagine), but to not even relocate within the shopping centre and shut down completely will lose a lot of customers, new and old. I'm sure our competitors will have no trouble finding more loyal customers.

Countless other stores interstate have suddenly disappeared without a trace. Browsing through The Company's website will alert you to the confusion faced by customers as they go to shop at their favourite store, only to find that it has disappeared and there is no notice of where it may have been relocated to or why. The Company's response to the customers' comments were that there will be a clearance store opening nearby (but not as conveniently located) shortly. This does not bode well with us working in the retail stores, especially when we know or think that our lease may be up shortly...

At the moment, The Company has decided to not only focus on the sales and success of the clearance stores, but of course, not ignoring us completely, have decided to attempt to increase our sales and patronage to our stores by lowering prices and having regular sales. Needless to say, this has brought in a completely new breed of customers. Ones that won't pay $60 for a shirt, gasp when you respond that the jacket is indeed correctly marked at $180, ask when the next sale starts and ask for discounts on socks and undies. It was only 2 years ago that a sale was a privilege and were few and far between. We didn't need to have them all the time because we knew that our customers would come back for the same styles of clothing that they're comfortable in, even if it be the exact same pair of pants or shoes he'd bought 2 years ago. 'He only wears The Company jeans, so I just need another pair of the same style please'. Customers were polite, understanding and willing to fork out the money for their quality goods. Our catalogues advertised new stock at full price and people would still come in to buy them. You could count on us to have all the pants at $70 and all the shirts at $60 or whatever. People were happy with that. We didn't need to ply them with cheap gifts as incentives.

Right now, with most stock being marked down at our retail stores (I know, because we spent hours repricing them) and the arrival of new, sometimes skanky, poor quality clothing, our individual sales have dropped. Thus, the commission earned by retail staff has also dropped. The retail stores are now not in direct competition with The Company clearance stores, but it looks like we are now trying to compete with Best and Less, Big W and other 'value' department stores.

Thing is, once you lose your reputation as being a prestigous, quality apparel chain, it doesn't come back easily. I used to be extremely proud of working at The Company. Now I just question where it's headed and whether we'll all have jobs in the next few years.