Consumerist - The Herald Sun brings us the story of shopper Keara, who went shopping last week to find bridesmaid dresses for her wedding and another outfit for her bachelorette party. At GASP, Keara says a retail associate named "Chris" was nice at first but then went all Mean Girls on her when he realized she wouldn't be making a purchase, making fun of her size 12 body and yelling, "Have fun shopping at Supre [a local chain]... I knew you were a joke the minute you walked in." Mean, unwarranted, and just not something you do. To top it all off, Keara also works in the retail industry and says she'd never do something like that. A normal human wouldn't, or at least not expect to get away with it. But instead of the store apologizing or even being halfway decent when Keara sent in a complaint, a GASP area manager took the whole thing to a new level of despicableness.
What the hell is the Consumerist talking about? "new level of despicableness?" It's called knowing your core demographic and having your employees back. I'd go in the fox hole with this manager any day of the week. He may come off as a prick but I can't imagine a better guy to work for. Instead of berating this guy for telling this chick she's wasting his time because she can't fit in their clothes anyway, he goes out and calls him a retail superstar and confirms that, yes, a girl who can't fit into the clothes they have in store is indeed wasting their time. It's a sad state on our society that a straight talking, manager of the people, can be berated for having the guts to speak honestly about his businesses employees and priorities. This man has a brand image to protect, and employees to retain, and that's exactly what he did.
Let's take a look at his response:
From the very outset, one thing that you should be mindful of is; Our product offerings are very, very carefully selected, so to ensure that we do not appeal to a broad customer base. This is something which is always at the forefront of our minds when undertaking buying duties. The reason for this is to ensure that we only carry products which appeal to a very fashion forward consumer. This by default means that the customer whom is acclimatised to buying from "clothing for the masses" type retailers, is almost frightened by our range, sometimes we have found that this type of customer, almost finds our dresses funny, and on occasion noted comments such as 'it looks like a dead flamingo'. When we receive comments like this, we like to give ourselves and our buyers, a big pat on the back, because we know we are doing our job right, and modus operandi is being upheld.
Our range is worn by A list celebrities to the likes of Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez and Katy Perry to name only a few. Now, as one might appreciate, the style counsel for these types of celebrities are not ones to pick "run of the mill" type clothing, and they do so on the basis to ensure that the styles are cutting edge, and only worn by a select few. Similarly these items are priced such that they remain inaccessible to the undesirable.
Translation: You're not exactly a pop supermodel. This isn't Walmart where you just pick whatever off the rack and it fits you like a burlap sack. These are fine clothes for fine looking people. We weren't going to sell anything to you anyway.
Let me guess, you would never, ever hire Chris in the course of your duty, would you? This is the very reason, why your comment "from one retailer to another" is so disproportionate, it's almost as though we are in a totally different industries. Chris is a retail superstar, who possess unparalleled ability, and I am sorry you feel upset by him, but he knew you were not going to buy anything before you even left your house. So if you would like to do us any favours, please do not waste our retail staff's time, because as you have already seen, they will not tolerate it. I am sure there are plenty of shops that appease your taste, so I respectfully ask that you side step our store during future window shopping expeditions.
Translation: I back Chris up 100%. Instead of wasting time appeasing you in your fantasy search for clothes you'd need a 12 month gym membership with an Army bootcamp instructor screaming in your face to fit into, he decided it might be more worth his time to help the store increase profits by moving on to customers that actually intended to buy something. Your fanciful afternoon of window shopping isn't paying Chris' rent, kid wants to get paid.
