Shop Talk

Don’t Believe Everything A Sales Person Tells You

As I sat outside Nordstrom’s eBar, one evening, sipping on a smooth cappuccino (way better than Star*ucks), I was a witness to a Sales Crime. It took place at a nearby boutique. The recently opened boutique is adjacent to Nordstrom, which means if you’re sitting on the patio chairs outside, minding your own business, as I was, you can see exactly what’s going on inside this brightly lit boutique, only a few feet away. As I sat down under the huge patio umbrella, and the sky grew darker, it started to drizzle. The boutique lights shone even brighter as every passerby became a shadow. The stage was set and the drama unfolded before me.

Beware of Cooler Than Thou Boutiques
It’s a boutique I like, although I’ve never bought anything there. It has a hip feel about it, which is hard to come by in OC. The few times, I’ve browsed through their metal racks; I liked the look of their clothes. It’s one of those boutiques that’s good in theory, but never manages to seduce me to finish the deal and make a purchase. They’ve only been open six months or so, and already their stuff is starting to look raggedy. What at first appeared to be cool has now morphed in overpriced dreariness. Perhaps they’re in-between seasons.

This Sales Crime took place by someone who knew better; the über trendy Sales Person. He inflicted his “sales talk” on the innocent Buyer, who had no idea what she’d been coerced into. It’s a shame I can’t lip-read, but I could just about figure out what was going on inside.

The Victim/Buyer
Walks in: The Buyer, an attractive, thirty-something old brunette, with an above-average figure. She is a Sales Person’s dream catch. But I could tell from her indecisive zigzagging from one item to another, that she was either in a great hurry (which I later realise was not the case) or that she was unsure of herself. This is also a Sales Person’s desired customer type; someone that has no direction, is lost and confused, with a malleable personality, that’s going to listen and trust you.

Sales people hate “Know It Alls” like me. As soon as one of them wants to get me to try on a pink tutu, I usually tell them something like: “Thanks, but it’s not me” which makes them look at me in way that I could almost hear they’re saying: “You’re a stroppy cow with no sense of style, what exactly is you?” Although no-one has actually said this to me, I still imagine they have and this prompts me to give them an aloof look and some indifferent gestures with each item of clothing they choose for me, until they realize that they’re wasting their resources that could result in a hard-sell with someone else and they leave me alone. As with any advice, whether it is emotional, financial or fashion-orientated, I believe, if you need it, you’re going to ask for it, and I often do.

I know they’re only doing their job and they probably have a Dragonette manager looming over them, and directing them to pounce on every customer that walks through their doors, but why doesn’t someone with an MBA from an Ivy League college let them know at the next retail convention, that their high pitched “Hellos!” are startling and their Prozac induced smiles are annoying. It’s as if they are purposely trying to catch you off guard (like Cato, Inspector Clouseau’s valet), so that even if you’ve picked up something to buy or try on, you put it right back because your sense of privacy has been invaded.

Beware of Super Trendy Sales People
The Sales Person was in his late thirties dressed in mandatory head to toe black, wearing a woolly hat (similar to what garbage men wear back in London), and he sported his look with a shiny PVC-like jacket that was probably by some avant-garde Japanese designer who had been inspired by black trash bags (remember Zoolander?). If you saw him late at night, in a dark alley, you might mistake him for a homeless man, unless you saw his mouche: the small patch of facial hair deliberately groomed into a square shape between his lower lip and chin.

He was also wearing silver thumb ring. Although I’ve never been tempted to wear a ring on my thumb, I’m not against equal opportunity for fingers. After all, why should the third finger on your left hand have all the fun? Having said that, do people decide one day, that I need to buy a thumb ring or do they instead find a ring they love, that’s just too big for any other finger? I’m leaning toward the latter unless you’re in a rock band or you’d like to be in one, in which case anything goes and all bets are off.

The Desperate Hunt For a Date Dress
Being around 6pm on a Friday evening, I assumed that she was either buying a dress for that evening or for the following night. There was a sense of urgency to the matter at hand, but at the same time, she had all the time in the world to try on anything that they Sales Person offered. I imagined that she was looking for a date dress. Or maybe she was in one of those “on again, off again” relationships that with the boost of the right dress might be back “on again”. She couldn’t have been looking for a First Date Dress. Everyone has a First Date Dress, the tried and tested dress. She was raising the bar, she was going for the kill, she was in search of the Ultimatum Dress.

The decision was narrowed down to three contenders. With each of the three black dresses the Sales Person handed to her, over the dressing room door, she would come out and give herself an uncertain look in the mirror and try another one. All three were short and black. How wrong can you go with a little black dress (LBD), you ask? My answer is: sometimes, very wrong.

The Sell
The first one looked like a potato sack with a huge bow on one shoulder. I’m sure he told her how comfy it looks. She was warming to the idea, when she spotted another LBD on the mannequin. The sales person took it off the mannequin for her to try it on. This usually means, they’ll find a way of making sure you buy it. She kept pulling it down, as she came out and showed dress number two to the sales person. It looked like something that had shrunk in the wash. He looked in praise at her but I knew he was thrown off because he was faced with the predicament of selling her a dress that was either too big (Le potato sack: dress number 1) or one that was too small (Honey, I shrunk the dress, dress number 2). I’m sure he told her, this one was, sexy.

The third one, the piece de resistance, was the worse, and probably the most expensive, because, wait for it, the Sales Person applauded, when she emerged from the fitting room. The dress had a series of horizontal cuts, which usually have immense benefits. However, in this case, the cuts were in the most unflattering of places (a big slit across the belly is not a good idea). It could easily have been a creation by Edward Scissorhands. I’m sure he told her this one was edgy. Whatever, word he used to describe the look, she desperately wanted to believe it. And, just like that, he cast his spell on her, and he made her believe that this dress was going to seal her fate. I suspected it might, but not in the direction she had hoped for.

I was about to put my coffee down, walk in and advise her otherwise. I felt a responsibility as an unbiased voyeur with a commission-free conscience. She wasn’t going to get far in that dress. That dress was all about hostility. If it was to be worn on a first date, she would not see another date. If it was for the “on again, off again” guy, the dress was a surely a turn off. If it was an Ultimatum Dress, it would only work along the lines of him saying: “never wear something like that again.” How could I tell her, that something as innocent as a choice of a LBD, can be so telling, so earth-shattering, so wrong?

Well, I couldn’t. So instead, I’ve decided to compile an easy to remember, list of Sales Comments and their direct translations to prevent this sort of thing happening again. Remember, sales people, are not your friends, they’re there to sell. I used to be one.