So I have this woman who is a pretty good customer but a bit of a problem. She is a returner. She buys stuff from us but she will buy three things and return one. And she is always telling stories about how she buys something from lets say Bloomingdale's and returns it months later for credit at the full price to buy it on sale.
Now we have a strict return policy. Seven days with tags attached for store credit. It is the same thing that every other boutique in downtown Brooklyn does. So she calls while we are away and wants to speak to my wife. She wants to return a dress she bought in early May. Two months ago. Now she claims she didn't wear it. OK I guess that is possible. But in the interim we sold every other dress like that in the store. It was a special spring fabric that we can't get anymore of so if we take it back we will have only one of this dress. Now you never want to have only one of a dress. It is always a problem because all of the people who don't fit into it want it. I mean they could have passed it by dozens of times when I had a full size run but now that there are no more left they will want it.
So I feel we have to refuse to take it back. She has been a good customer but she has gotten great clothes from us. And we have worked with her to put together outfits all the time. If it was a staple piece that I have a lot of I might consider it but not as a one off. I already did it for her once before and I don't want to do it again because she will tell other customers what we did and soon they will all want to return stuff they bought in July in December. I mean seriously.
So we will have to see how this turns out.
Update: The wife chickened out and took the dress back. I offered to be the bad guy. That's my job. But she wanted to let it slide. Problems of a shopkeeper.
15 comments:
Your observation - when there is only one, everyone wants it is fascinating to me.
You are really watching and learning the psychology of your average customer.
I'd be willing to bet that if you refused to take back the dress and then told her your reasons for doing so as comprehensively and considerately as possible your thanks would be verbal abuse.
Make additional tags explaining your return policy. Hold the tag up to the customer at purchase, clearly explain it to her, then use one of those punchy things to clip it to the tag on the garment. Smile warmly.
Whatever happened to that a..hole lawyer lady who wanted to return a jacket with (as I recall) ketchup she had spilled on it? You took her out in the back alley to explain return policy, right?
Troop I can tell you that I hate having to shop for clothes and it’s not because I’m a guy who hates shopping, on the contrary I enjoy it. I hate it because I can hardly ever find stuff that fits well. I am told I have to get ‘athletic’ cut stuff and of course there are soooo many of those. Here is an example, I’m 6’1 205 and the only jeans I can wear are Levis and then, only boot cut. Almost ten years of cycling have blessed me with these big quads which only seem to fit in boot cut Levis. Straight leg? Fuggedabout it. Oh yeah and that 34x34 size is so abundant too. Oh I can fit in ‘loose’ fit which I have come to understand is the polite term for fat. The last pair I tried on only needed a strip of rope as a belt to complete the Jethro look that I had going.
Shirts are a pain in the ass. I’m very broad shouldered which means I end up having to get XL sized shirts. Every dress shirt I get has to be an 18 neck just so it will fit on my shoulders yet the arms and waist don’t taper and I look like I’m wearing a tent with a collar. Then I have to take it to the nice Korean lady down the street who takes in the waist and sleeves so I have to add an automatic $10 to the price of every shirt unless I want to look like I shop at Omar the Tentmaker. Three button polo styles the same thing. I need an XL which fit fine on the shoulders and then I’m tucking in 3 yards of frickin fabric in my jeans. Plus I hate having to take a $15 polo from Kohls to get altered.
I just find clothes buying annoying because I can pick three brands of say boot cut jeans, all the same size and I guarantee one of them won’t fit at all. I tried on a pair of Dockers that were on sale a month ago and they were so tight you could tell my religion. I mean what is up with that? Just on the chance the size was mislabeled I tried another pair just like it and it was the same crotch suffocating fit. This is the reason I absolutely refuse to buy clothes online.
I mean my body type is not that out of sort yet I have one helluva time finding something that fits right off the hanger. I know this has nothing to do with your post but I had to rant.
John there are signs all over the store and the terms are printed on each and every reciept. When the New York City Dept of Consumer Affairs inspectors came in they said we were the only ones who actually complied with the law and were very impressed. She had no excuse, she knew the policy. She just figured she should be an exception. Which is the way everybody feels. But it was a long hard day dealing with the TV show and the wife just didn't want to fight about. And I should sell the dress since it is the largest size we carry and I always have a demand for it. Especailly since it was one of the best dresses that we made so far.
I just had to make sure she didn't wear it and it didn't smell.
Fit is the most troublesome thing about buying clothes. You see you have to look at the details. Each lot of a garment can be done at a differnt factory so the same pants in the same pile at the store can come from two differnt places and fit totally differently. That's why you want to sell in groups or size runs so the fit is bascily the same. If you have five different garments from five different orders there is a chance it will fit five different ways. The thing you need to do is actually know your correct measurements. Don't guess. Then buy it a little bigger and have it tailored. That's if you want it to fit perfectly.
I buy most of my stuff online too!
But that is because I am a big doufous. You can't get size 14 Triple E in the store.
And you know what the say about guys with big feet.
They have big shoes.
The only solution to your problem, Hoosier, is to accept the fact that you can't get a shirt or pair of pants to fit in every dimension, buy the one that fits in your highest priority dimension and then take it to a tailor to be let out, taken in, lengthened, shortened, whatever. Inconvenient and horribly expensive? Yes. But there's no other way.
By the way the lawyer lady backed down. She knew she was in the wrong and that most people would think she was unreasonable. I lost her as a customer but I knew that was going to happen anyway. She would have just taken the credit and spent it on new clothes and never bought anything else in the store. Her friend the judge has been back and made it clear that none of this had anything to do with her.
It's been my experiance in life that people just do what is best for them and will throw anyone under the bus in thier own self-interest.
The other thing I always tell my wife is that you can do 100 nice things for someone but if you don't do that last thing they want....well you suck. And you have always sucked.
That's the way it goes.
Yeah ricpic that’s pretty much what I have been doing for years. I mean I have found a few nice polos that fit broad and taper nicely but they also cost $70 a pop and I’m not exactly a Nordstroms kind of guy. I tend to look for bargains which follows the adage, you get what you pay for. But its still more economical for me to get my $15 Kohls polo shirt fitted than buy the $70 Ralph Lauren.
It's been my experiance in life that people just do what is best for them and will throw anyone under the bus in thier own self-interest.
Troop I think that is case especially when it comes to businesses and their owners. A lot of people do so in a heartbeat and with a clear conscience simply because they think it’s a business and you’re the owner and you’re rich so what’s a measley couple hundred bucks etc. Most people aren’t business owners and don’t realize the paper thin profit margins they operate on or the hours they spend and the fact that the money just doesn’t waltz in the door etc.
We're all weeping because Hoosier's built like a brick house (better hope Titus didn't see your comment).
I've been wearing 32x34 for 30 years--even many catalogs don't carry those in adult styles.
My company sells fertilizer to farmers (mostly). In two years it went from ~$200/ton to $800 or more, which upset a few people. Everyone wants it at the same time, and they expect us to drop everything else. We had over 300 charge accounts, but less than a hundred are now active. My boss intentionally drove a few away, but our margins are so low it doesn't hurt much.
My dad wears a 31x36. (Yes, that's waist first.) Try finding that in a store.
Good lord, Freem. That's a beanpole!
My dad wears a 31x36.
Don't you guys feed him? ;-)
Hoosier Daddy! So not TMI.
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