Mr. Vker

Slightly OT, but assumptions in sales are dangerous. I am in business to business tech sales. I have had $15k deals be excrutiating and take 3 months. I have had $1,000,000 deals close in 30 days and everything in between. The minute my suppositions cloud my judgement I lose.

GUWonder

Racism is a big factor and the primary factor -- despite attire and even entourage -- when dealing with salespeople whose primary exposure to some ethnic minorities seems to be limited to, or reliant upon, those fitting into their racist stereotypes that align perceived race, poverty and criminal representation into the same bucket.

This becomes more obvious when relatively wealthy Americans of perceived ethnic South Asian, SW Asian, or African origins move to, or spend a huge amount of time visiting, the Schengen Zone and go shopping a lot by themselves.

Unimatrix One

About 15 years ago my wife and I walked into a realtor's office here in Tokyo and started browsing the posted offerings for homes. We were very young (late 20s), and I am an obvious foreigner. The agent approached us and made several discouraging comments. He clearly had the impression that we couldn't afford anything that was on offer. We walked out very quickly, having been basically chased out of the shop.

A few years later we bought a house (from a different realtor) that was more expensive than anything in the shop we had visited earlier.

tartempion

I wanted to buy a new car but working late, driving home after 6pm all the dealers were closed. Thus I drove to the local dealer on a Saturday morning but found the place closed.
Wondering how I would be able to buy a car withouth taking a day off I rang the bell.

An angry man opened his home window above the garage and shouted "We are closed"
Followed by an "What do you want?"

I replied "buying a new car, but you are closed" and drove off.

I phoned to dealers in town and found one who stayed open after 6pm and waited for me. 30 minutes of paperwork later I got my new car.

WChou

When I got engaged to my now wife, I knew any ring I picked out would be awful or ugly. We made the mutual decision for her to design her own. We did our homework and came up with a general list of criteria for her dream ring. She got the full "Pretty Woman" experience at the stores she approached. Many were rude or flat out refused to give her the time of day. The seemingly nice ones never followed up or returned her calls.

Weeks after the engagement, she was still a ringless bride to be. On to way to meet a vendor for the wedding, she happened to see a small jewelry shop with beautiful rings on display. She went in and started chatting with the owner. Over the course of 6 visits, they went over many stones to find the perfect one, created a design, and conducted fittings. A month later, it was all done and the results were stunning.

As the big day approached, she wanted to get some jewelry cleaning solution in case of a last minute accident. She happened to be near one of the ruder stores that blew her off months earlier. Running late with few options, she grudgingly went in. As she was paying for the cleaning supplies, the same clerk that blew her off saw the ring and suddenly became her best friend. The clerk started asking about the ring and my wife was more than happy to give details. The clerk immediately began the sales pitch for jewelry that would compliment the ring. Then the bombshell, "You don't remember me do you?" as she recounted how the clerk refused to help her during her first visit. Then the famous, "Big mistake. Big. Huge." as she walked out

BTW, if anyone needs an excellent jeweler in San Francisco, drop me a message.

Kagehitokiri

i guess i am kind of limiting to higher end, more like thread title as opposed to original post.
for example, if someone walks into a store wearing that store's products or a competitor's products.

non-minority discriminating against another non-minority establishes that other factors exist. i dont see anyone here arguing that there are no other factors. but i get tired of media/etc where there is a claim that there are never any other possibilities other than race.

violist

If management fosters a corporate culture that allows that sort of
thing to happen, yes, having such an enterprise go under is a
cause for celebration.

GUWonder

I'd rather see the financial failings reach the point of leading to a management change or take-over by others before the business ends up liquidating and ruining the financial well-being of all the well-intentioned as a casualty of the ill-intentioned bad apples. But after seeing enough bad apples, it's not always a big leap to conclude that perhaps the tree is diseased to the core and needs to go.

While non-minority discrimination against non-minorities does indeed take place a lot and it does so on the basis of largely mutable characteristics such as attire or shopping party, the more insipid "Pretty Woman" moments at even premium brand retail shops (below the private-sales-by-appointment/haute-couture-private-fitting level) tend to involve racism and/or sexism as the primary factors in how salespeople treat potential customers. You can change your attire, make-up, shopping party and even speech patterns, but changing perceived ethnicity is no walk in the park relative even to changing perceived sex/gender identity.

violist

Vitiates your point, insofar as you really haven't had the full experience,
even if you may have witnessed some of it.
Agreed.
Thanks for providing a reasonable handle on potential causes of the
phenomenon, which on the face of it seems bizarrely unjust, where
it's actually merely unjust.

Funny thing - as an Asian of a certain age, I've lived through the days
of prejudice against followed by a period of prejudice in favor, with
the pendulum swinging in the other direction now.

Kagehitokiri

my main point will always be existence of other factors, never claiming that racism does not exist. for that matter, racism can be especially bad between different non-caucasian ethic groups, and that is another thing media/etc claims does not exist.

while not making judgements towards 'poorly dressed' non-minorities? wow.

GUWonder

My points will always be with reference to the existence of factors as they exist in the here and now.

I'm well aware of even intra-ethnic group prejudices or inter-minority group prejudices affecting travel and shopping experiences of minorities. You'll never find me attributing racism and sexism as a dynamic over which any one group has a monopoly -- I've lived and travelled such that I know better than to ascribe a monopoly of such behavior to any single group.


The private sales by appointment only and private fitting sales involve customer vetting before the customer even shows up at the shop. At that point of showing up "poorly dressed", "poorly dressed" is a marginal factor as they know the gilded-set is already there and they consider the customer a "real" customer.

In the post of mine which you quoted, I already covered that poorly-dressed non-minorities are also subject to "Pretty Woman" moments at premium brand retail outlets of some sort. It's in the first sentence:

Kagehitokiri

sounds like they treat poorly dressed people ok as long as not aforementioned minority. not good. especially when aforementioned minority appears wealthy.

please excuse my poor choice of words.

pittpanther

Many interesting stories in this thread, but I don't know if a single one of these businesses changed their bad practices as a result. Trying to embarrass the front line salesperson who embarrassed you, is a waste of time. Either they won't remember you, or they will dismiss you as a crackpot.

A discussion with the store management to let them know how their salespeople are tearing potential customers might make a difference. But of course some stores encourage the dismissive practices of their salespeople in order to maintain their impression of exclusivity. So you never know.

Ber2dca

People are being a bit stupid about this stuff, talking about corporate culture based on *one* anecdotal experience is almost like basing your entire view of an airline on a one-off event, oh wait that's what people do all the time as well on here. Well, carry on.

Box5

There was a story where Oprah was reportedly told by a Swiss shop that a handbag was too expensive for her.

A Ford salesman once told me that the manager told him not to let me test drive a Ford Taurus because I wouldn't buy it. Huh? A Taurus is not an expensive car. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't buy one! In some parts of the U.S., it looks like a rental car.