promotional items
Working in retail, you get to see a lot about what happens behind the scenes, and it has definitely had an effect on me and changed the way I do and think about certain things. For starters, I feel bad about coming into a store any less than 30 minutes before it closes and even then I feel the need to clean up after myself in the fitting room and even in the store in general. Working at a clothing store and having to stay later when people make messes makes you feel bad when you go to other stores. Our store in particular closes at 9 p.m. and people will come in at 8:55 and act like they don't know it is closing. It makes us so annoyed and we have to stay even later to clean up after those people. Or when I go in the fitting room now at other stores, I always clean up after myself and even sometimes put the clothes away on my own that I don't plan on buying. Being on the inside really helps you see things in a different light. Another big thing is promotional items. At our store occasionally we'll do a buy 50 dollars and you get a 25 dollar off savings card for a future date as a promotion. Recently we had it from like June 1st until June 10th and for every 50 dollars you spent you would get a 25 dollar savings card with your receipt that could be used between July 2nd and July 6th. Well guess what, that is a holiday weekend so almost no one came into the store to redeem their 25 dollar off savings card, and that was the point. The store knows that people go away for the fourth of July holiday weekend and so they get people to spend 50 dollars or even multiples of 50 dollars in order to get their cards (which so many customers are actually really excited about), and then they'll never come into redeem them. So while other stores that I shop at probably benefit a lot from my inside knowledge, like me cleaning up after myself, I know the tricks they are trying to pull and I definitely do not fall for them. I don't buy into the savings cards or save 10 percent by opening a credit card, because I've spit out that line too