retail recon (the extended mix)

so, i went shopping with ME on friday…

…a great time was had by all, ‘cept at a couple stores where i felt like i was buying a timeshare…

baby, no bullshit.

ME was looking about for a few things, we rarely get time together these days, so off to the outlet mall in san marcos we did go on friday…the only thing i found i wanted was the color of the floor in the guess store needs to be the color of the floors in my house. other than that, not so much on my end. but we went all over, and the first place i noticed it was at the ed hardy store…

hi, welcome to ed hardy…what can i help you with?
we’re just looking…
okay…but just to let you know, we’ve got hoodies on special buy one get one half off…
…um, okay. thanks.

(the puzzled tone in part due to the “hoodie sale” in june. in texas. heat index 107. better bundle up!)

we also have some pretty cool men’s tees that just came in, and some new jeans…
okay, thanks…we’re just…
and some nice accessories. i’m sorry, what were y’all looking for again?
we’re JUST FUCKING looking…
okay, well my name is dakota if you need anything…
um…thanks.

(four steps later we round a corner beyond some tattoo flash looking posters)

hi…welcome to ed hardy – what can i help you find today?

FUCK OFF!!!!

and so it went…through ed hardy, guess, armani, and tommy hilfiger. really bad at the first and the last. the only place we DIDN’T get that was at the oakley store, where the manager knows me so he took care of us.

but i’m torn – is it the economy making these people hard up for sales? commission-based retail? or just the management pushing them to make dat money? here’s what i noticed – we went to the OTHER outlet mall (san marcos in an anomaly – both prime outlets AND tanger outlets (the two biggest outlet mall chains) have outlet malls there…right across the street from each other) and went to THEIR tommy hilfiger store and were left alone after a “hey, what’s up…” style greeting…so, same designer, outlet store, but changing malls made the difference between “shopping” and what bordered on “retail assault”.

anybody else feel overly “pushed” when shopping recently?