Yesterday was June 30; the last day of the Australian financial year. A significant number of retailers have been promoting “End of financial year” and / or “Stocktaking” sales and, being a Saturday, thousands of shoppers were out snapping up bargains.

I joined them and trekked off to Garden City, a major southside Brisbane shopping mall. I bought some bits and pieces for my office including a new wide screen monitor which I’m totally in love with! After that, I went searching for clothes and bought some new casual stuff; jeans, a shirt, and a sweater from a major department store. The assistant who helped me went out of her way to find a sweater in my size and to hold on to each of my purchase as looked for more things to buy.

Having by now spent some $800 and clearly in the mood to spend more (fun, isn’t it?) I went into a menswear store to check out suits. I’ve written about menswear stores before and this is one of the stores I previously wrote about. Clearly nothing has changed!

Directly in front of the rack of suits I was wanting to look at was a stepladder. It completely blocked my access to the stock. A staff member, probably the owner, approached from the other side of the ladder and asked, “Can I help you?”

“Yes” I replied, “You could move this ladder so I can have a look at these suits.”

His response? “Oh, you can do that for yourself, it will be good exercise for you.”

Hello! As if I’m going to move his ladder. Where would I put it? What would happen if I dropped it and it landed on a customer; damaged stock, shelving or broke a mirror?

I gave him “The Look” - you know what I mean – shook my head and walked out.

That’s three times I’ve walked out of his shop; three times they  have missed me taking my wallet out to spend money.  

I’ll never know if he was serious or just joking but here’s the thing; whichever it was totally backfired on him. All he had to do was say, “Sure” and moved the ladder. What he doesn’t realise is that I liked the suit and the price was right.

I keep telling people that it’s the little things that cost you sales. Courtesy, respect, being sensible when you talk to customers. It’s not difficult.

Please share some of your worst shopping experiences with us; just take the “Comments” link above this article and post your comment. I’m sure it will make interesting reading for everyone and, hopefully, a few retailers might just read them and take notice.