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Date: Late Fall 2003
Time: Midday
Location: Large Department Store in Large Urban Mall
I am working a retail desk at a department store, and have been working there for much of a year at this point.
As a junior retail drone, one of my common tasks is to take a pricing gun and markdown clothes that haven't sold in a long time and/or are going out of season.
We had a huge display of some godawful polyester plaid button-up shirts. They were hideous, like some relic from the 70's. They were also way too expensive, originally like about $40. The shirts sold about as well as vacation bungalows in Chernobyl. Not a single sale marred the pristine display of stacked shirts on that forlorn table.
Every few weeks I'd get a computer printout of what to go and mark down. These shirts over time went to $40, and then $30, to $15, and finally $8. When they hit $8 they sold. . .modestly. Most still didn't sell, but some moved off the display. We packed them up and sent them off to who-knows-where. Don't know where they went, but those fashion disasters were finally gone.
Well, on a cold Late Fall/Early Winter afternoon, a few days after the shirts were sent to Away, two Mexican-American gentlemen came up to my counter. They plopped a big handful of these shirts, still with cardboard and full packaging, on the counter.
"Return!" is all they said. If they spoke English well, they were hiding it.
Well, I recognize the shirts immediately, I had to spend a LOT of time marking them down. They didn't have receipts, but the tags on the shirts had the little "proof of purchase" barcode labels that we put on everything sold for tracking so we could take the return.
I immediately notice something is fishy. The shirt price tags read $70. Those shirts were never $70, even brand new, they never had that tag on them. These shirts only ever actually sold for about $8, after heavy markdowns.
Then the tag came off the shirt as I touched the tag. I looked at the tags more closely, that little plastic thread that attaches it to the clothing had been cut, and then the little thread was apparently just stuck back in there in a button hole. It was immediately evident that some expensive items were purchased, some inexpensive items were purchased, and they were trying to return the inexpensive items with the expensive tags attached hoping to get the expensive items effectively for the inexpensive price.
So, they were trying to get something that was $70 for $8 effectively. Not on my watch.
I tell the customers in plain, simple, English (since my Spanish is pretty limited) that I cannot process the return.
"Return!. . .Please Return!" Was all they said again.
This time I decided to show them. I pointed to the collar where the tag was stuck in, and pointed to the tag in my hand, I pulled the other cut tags off and pulled the cut tags out and held them up. and said simply "No Return!"
The two gentlemen got a scared look on their faces, one scrambled for the door while another tried to grab the shirts and snared a couple of shirts (but I still had the expensive tags) before leaving himself.
Time: Midday
Location: Large Department Store in Large Urban Mall
I am working a retail desk at a department store, and have been working there for much of a year at this point.
As a junior retail drone, one of my common tasks is to take a pricing gun and markdown clothes that haven't sold in a long time and/or are going out of season.
We had a huge display of some godawful polyester plaid button-up shirts. They were hideous, like some relic from the 70's. They were also way too expensive, originally like about $40. The shirts sold about as well as vacation bungalows in Chernobyl. Not a single sale marred the pristine display of stacked shirts on that forlorn table.
Every few weeks I'd get a computer printout of what to go and mark down. These shirts over time went to $40, and then $30, to $15, and finally $8. When they hit $8 they sold. . .modestly. Most still didn't sell, but some moved off the display. We packed them up and sent them off to who-knows-where. Don't know where they went, but those fashion disasters were finally gone.
Well, on a cold Late Fall/Early Winter afternoon, a few days after the shirts were sent to Away, two Mexican-American gentlemen came up to my counter. They plopped a big handful of these shirts, still with cardboard and full packaging, on the counter.
"Return!" is all they said. If they spoke English well, they were hiding it.
Well, I recognize the shirts immediately, I had to spend a LOT of time marking them down. They didn't have receipts, but the tags on the shirts had the little "proof of purchase" barcode labels that we put on everything sold for tracking so we could take the return.
I immediately notice something is fishy. The shirt price tags read $70. Those shirts were never $70, even brand new, they never had that tag on them. These shirts only ever actually sold for about $8, after heavy markdowns.
Then the tag came off the shirt as I touched the tag. I looked at the tags more closely, that little plastic thread that attaches it to the clothing had been cut, and then the little thread was apparently just stuck back in there in a button hole. It was immediately evident that some expensive items were purchased, some inexpensive items were purchased, and they were trying to return the inexpensive items with the expensive tags attached hoping to get the expensive items effectively for the inexpensive price.
So, they were trying to get something that was $70 for $8 effectively. Not on my watch.
I tell the customers in plain, simple, English (since my Spanish is pretty limited) that I cannot process the return.
"Return!. . .Please Return!" Was all they said again.
This time I decided to show them. I pointed to the collar where the tag was stuck in, and pointed to the tag in my hand, I pulled the other cut tags off and pulled the cut tags out and held them up. and said simply "No Return!"
The two gentlemen got a scared look on their faces, one scrambled for the door while another tried to grab the shirts and snared a couple of shirts (but I still had the expensive tags) before leaving himself.
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