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I know everyone has store policies that they hate, but what about the ones that rock?
I used to work part time at a bookstore but now I have a full-time job elsewhere (that I love, btw). However, I still like working at my old store and have no plans to quit anytime soon. That being said, here are some store policies that made me literally squeal with joy when I learned of them:
Returns or exchanges must be done within 14 days and with a valid receipt.
Our return policy used to be somewhat lenient, something like 30 days cash back with a receipt or store exchange only either without a receipt or if the customer waited longer than 30 days. We had so many people buy a book, return it, buy another book, return it, ad infinitum that it was crazy. One of my managers could pinpoint a woman that he said had been doing this for over three years. Eventually corporate decided that they had had enough of so-called customers using us as a library and imposed the much stricter policy. Oh how the customers moaned! They screamed! They cried! They came back anyway.
The employees literally cheered and danced for joy when the new policy was announced during a meeting.
No sitting on the floor.
Now this may seem rather draconian, but we do have our reasons for not allowing this particular behavior. My store is located in the same center as a movie theater. Often when showings get out we are the only store in the center that is still open. So we get the travelling packs of teenagers that come in solely to make a mess, flirt, and giggle at the sexuality section. Strike 1) people sit on the floor in front of bookshelves and refuse to move for either employees or other customers. Strike 2) Often the packs of teenagers mentioned earlier would camp out in one aisle, with 6-12 people splayed out over the floor. They would ignore us when we asked them to scoot over so other people could get through. It got so bad that the fire marshal told us (the store) that he could cite us for having fire hazards. Strike 3) People would take vast amounts of books, settle down somewhere, and quietly place a few titles in their bags. We didn’t notice (seeing as how we can’t stalk everyone and a lot of people took ridiculous numbers of books to glance at) until we installed cameras – at this point management had enough.
So no more! We politely shoo off teenagers, “lovebirds”, picnickers (I saw these people with my own eyes, WTF) and EW’s. Many customers threatened to leave forever, abused the managers, and complained to corporate. However, less than a month later they all came back. You know why? Because now our store is cleaner (with less piles of books to put away booksellers can keep up on their other tasks), there are more books on the shelves (see previous parentheses), people can actually get to the books, the store never feels “close” even if it’s busy, and the store looks more “upscale” (actual customer quote). Even the teenagers are back, only now they actually buy merchandise instead of loitering! Who knew?
I used to work part time at a bookstore but now I have a full-time job elsewhere (that I love, btw). However, I still like working at my old store and have no plans to quit anytime soon. That being said, here are some store policies that made me literally squeal with joy when I learned of them:
Returns or exchanges must be done within 14 days and with a valid receipt.
Our return policy used to be somewhat lenient, something like 30 days cash back with a receipt or store exchange only either without a receipt or if the customer waited longer than 30 days. We had so many people buy a book, return it, buy another book, return it, ad infinitum that it was crazy. One of my managers could pinpoint a woman that he said had been doing this for over three years. Eventually corporate decided that they had had enough of so-called customers using us as a library and imposed the much stricter policy. Oh how the customers moaned! They screamed! They cried! They came back anyway.
The employees literally cheered and danced for joy when the new policy was announced during a meeting.
No sitting on the floor.
Now this may seem rather draconian, but we do have our reasons for not allowing this particular behavior. My store is located in the same center as a movie theater. Often when showings get out we are the only store in the center that is still open. So we get the travelling packs of teenagers that come in solely to make a mess, flirt, and giggle at the sexuality section. Strike 1) people sit on the floor in front of bookshelves and refuse to move for either employees or other customers. Strike 2) Often the packs of teenagers mentioned earlier would camp out in one aisle, with 6-12 people splayed out over the floor. They would ignore us when we asked them to scoot over so other people could get through. It got so bad that the fire marshal told us (the store) that he could cite us for having fire hazards. Strike 3) People would take vast amounts of books, settle down somewhere, and quietly place a few titles in their bags. We didn’t notice (seeing as how we can’t stalk everyone and a lot of people took ridiculous numbers of books to glance at) until we installed cameras – at this point management had enough.
So no more! We politely shoo off teenagers, “lovebirds”, picnickers (I saw these people with my own eyes, WTF) and EW’s. Many customers threatened to leave forever, abused the managers, and complained to corporate. However, less than a month later they all came back. You know why? Because now our store is cleaner (with less piles of books to put away booksellers can keep up on their other tasks), there are more books on the shelves (see previous parentheses), people can actually get to the books, the store never feels “close” even if it’s busy, and the store looks more “upscale” (actual customer quote). Even the teenagers are back, only now they actually buy merchandise instead of loitering! Who knew?
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