For many retailers, the Christmas season is the busiest of the year as everybody is buying gifts for their nearest and dearest. Despite the ever-growing popularity of online shopping, thousands of us still flood the high street looking for party dresses, smelly gift sets for friends and novelty gifts for Secret Santas. In the UK, it is definitely not only twelve days of Christmas as the carol says, with many shops decorating their stores with tinsel in November and the “January sales” now being a thing of the past, with many retailers in 2013 starting their online sales on Christmas Eve.
We interview Ruth and Kelly, who both work in popular high street stores. They dish the dirt on Christmas shoppers and the horrors that people who work in retail deal with from us frenzied shoppers at “the most wonderful time of time of the year”.
Are there any changes in the attitude or behaviour of your customers over the festive season?
Kelly: Definitely. Customers tend to be more rushed and get stressed easily; this makes them irritable and rude to you. They are stressed about buying all of their presents and the amount of money they’re spending.
What else do they complain about?
Ruth: Some dump their baskets somewhere on the floor if they see there’s a big queue. But the biggest thing is customers arguing that they should get items for sale price because they found it on the sale rack…despite it not having a sale sticker.
Are there any items that shoppers leave behind in store whilst in the Christmas rush?
Ruth: Many people leave behind their shopping bags from other shops and there have been cases where people have left their shoes after stealing a new pair.
Kelly: People always leave coffee cups on the top of stands and on the floor. Sometimes these get spilt on the floor so we have to clean up after them.
We all experience the long queues at the tills over Christmas, does anybody try to queue jump?
Ruth: Not that I know of, but some join the refund queue instead of the normal one. Then they complain that they’ve been waiting for ages, but it’s their fault they went into the wrong line…not mine! Another thing customers also tend to do is to not leave the store when it’s closing time. They just carry on as normal and take their sweet time.
What is the worst thing a customer has done or said to you?
Ruth: Once, I was doing a task I don’t usually do and was finding it a bit difficult. The customer told me I needed to be trained better.
Kelly: It wasn’t my fault, but a non-sale item was dumped on the sale rack and I was trying to explain to a customer that I couldn’t sell it to him at sale price. In the end he called me f*****g useless.
Do you have any other horror stories to tell?
Ruth: Well, I heard that there was a poo on the shop floor – luckily I didn’t see it!
Everybody can get a bit crazy and stressed at Christmas when shopping, especially when there is nothing left in your size, it’s cold outside and you’ve got to wait until January for the next instalment of student loan to come through. But this year maybe we should spare a thought for the staff in retail that deal with our tantrums, put sale stickers on all the items and clean up our mess.
Edited by Luisa Parnell