5 ms·

>part of the department store experience is the relative expertise of staff in each department. And the sales pitch is one of high value, you might even say bea

by jasode 2y ago

>part of the department store experience is the relative expertise of staff in each department. And the sales pitch is one of high value, you might even say beauty or care. Yes, exactly. To add to that, the salespeople in each department got a percentage sales commission. E.g. at Sears department store, the salesperson in jewelry dept was on a commission structure. The salesman working the Sears appliance center got a commission when the customer bought a washer & dryer or refrigerator; same situation in the Sears furniture department when a customer bought a sofa. In contrast, the big-box discount stores like Walmart and HomeDepot have hourly paid employees without sales commissions.

JoshTriplett 2y ago
That is an excellent reason not to go to such places. For some stores, "we don't work on commission" is a selling point to the customer.
- dwaite 2y ago
  I think it tends to push to the extremes. Either it provides an incentive structure that retains knowledgable salespeople and provides a huge customer benefit, or it winds up being toxic for both the employees and customers.
  - devilbunny 2y ago
    Commissions work best when the customer and sales staff have long relationships and a decent knowledge of their markets. That's rarely the case at retail and pushes more hard-sell types. In B2B, it's about a relationship and trust. My FIL sells clothes. He's the middleman between the manufacturers and the stores. He has a territory and based on what's happening in other stores in the region he can steer them toward the right stuff for their store. I.e., what's this store's target age range, how affluent is the area, and so on. In return, when he does a good job with them, they will learn to trust his advice on what will generally sell well, and he ends up getting better commissions. He sells about a dozen lines from about six manufacturers, though about three or four of the lines tend to make up the bulk of his income. Since he's very good at his job, he can demand higher commissions than other salesmen just to take a line on. He's got the on-the-ground relationships, and a manufacturer will give him a bigger cut because he's not going to have canceled orders, returns, or headaches for them.
    - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
      Iterated prisoner's dilemma vs regular Same reason people are mean on the Internet
    - harimau777 2y ago
      As I understand it, that was one of the advantages of department stores. When you went to the jewelry section, for example, to buy your spouse an anniversary gift, the person working there was often the same person who recommended the jewelry you bought last anniversary.
      - devilbunny 2y ago
        In theory. Most staff at classic department stores didn't last quite that long. There's a local chocolate shop that has lots of turnover because they hire college girls to staff them most of the time. But the owner is on top of it, keeping good records, and about two weeks before Valentine's Day, they call me and say, Devilbunny, this is so-and-so from Chocolate Shop By You, you bought some chocolate-covered strawberries last year, would you like to order again this year? Yes, here's my credit card, and I'll pick them up after 3 pm on the 13th. Thank you, see you then. I walk up to the window, pick them up, bring them home, and say happy Valentine's. It's really the only thing she wants (I get her flowers but not roses - why be so cheesy when every other flower is like, half-price?) specifically. They make it easy to spend money with them instead of someone else. I don't have to wait more than a minute - they have a dedicated window for prepaid orders. That's service, and it's worth the small premium.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    In the old world where people knew each other, knew this was a lifelong sales relationship, and we saw each other at the grocery store, church, it worked pretty well. In the modern world where we are as anonymous to each other in person as online it doesn't really. Back when I was a rich tech guy, the local Nordies would hold all the Ugg styles in my daughter's size and the next up for my daughter when the season started because the sales lady that worked with my daughter and wife had a relationship with them. It was an AMAZING shopping experience for my daughter. She was seen by the sales person. She felt special. And my daughter had some issues that made her feel less than special. But here was this beautiful sophisticated sales person not only seeing her, but helping her in areas she felt poor self worth in. And if you make my daughter feel special then I'm coming back to you year after year. But if I go in and am a random person to you, and you are to me, why pay Nordies prices?
- Earw0rm 2y ago
  Yep, and they trade on reputation, thinking that will let them off on other factors. We have a store here, John Lewis, whose tech department sells lots of Macs and high-end TVs. So when they got in some 17 inch HP android tablets, I figured, surely they can't be _too_ bad? This was before iPad Pros, and I liked the idea of a large tablet. The thing was absolute garbage, stuck on an already-obsolete Android release. At least their returns policy was accommodating, but that's half a day I'll never get back.
- bluedino 2y ago
  Best Buy always pushed this. All the salespeople seem uninterested, uninformed hard to find, and all they want to do is sell the warranty/accessories.
  - tshaddox 2y ago
    Good! There’s no way they would be an expert on TVs anyway. I go elsewhere for information about TVs. The store is for simply purchasing the TV.
    - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
      Yes, we now all trust the random internet 'experts' whose profit motives we have zero knowledge or insight into.
      - tshaddox 2y ago
        Real experts can provide good explanations that can be independently verified by oneself and by a large community.
vector_spaces 2y ago
I realize you aren't saying this, but note that while commissions are common among larger department stores, it doesn't hold true in general across specialist retailers that every staff member is on commission. For instance, if you go to a specialty cheese or wine shop, or a fishmonger or supplement store or even smaller local department stores, it's entirely possible to meet a sales clerk on commission, but it's also (perhaps more) likely that you won't. Also, RE staff commissions -- this isn't always bad for the customer as some here are implying. Although there are stores where commissions can come directly from the manufacturer, or where some manufacturers offer staff commissions but some don't -- this tends to be bad, nearly always. On the other hand, if the commission comes from the employer, this can incentivize staff to build deeper product knowledge and awareness of tradeoffs between different brands and products (not to mention: mindfulness of trends, customer feedback and return rates, etc), which IME leads to better service and better sales for everyone involved. I mean, yes, sure, it can also lead to employees simply parroting whatever they learned from the manufacturer brochure. YMMV Brick & mortar retailers that don't provide commissions at all often still allow manufacturer led trainings of staff -- the retailer views this as essentially free staff development and morale building by increasing staff product knowledge while often providing free product or steep discounts. Sometimes manufacturers will straight up give away prizes unrelated to the products they sell (I've seen supplement vendors give away iPhones or cash prizes, for instance). Sales reps sometimes build personal relationships with certain retail workers they know have influence over purchasing or merchandising decisions. Often this is explicitly forbidden, but in practice virtually every company that has rules like this also rarely enforces them In any case, my point is that commission structures do not imply that you're getting bad/misleading information from sales staff, and lack of commission structures don't mean that sales staff are free of undue influence from sales reps and manufacturers or that they otherwise aren't incentivized somehow to push a particular product on you.
- RGamma 2y ago
  It's probably a good idea if you can find a self-employed expert for that specialty (like a decorator or kitchen builder) and have them make recommendations on what to get where. There's a (real, ahem) risk that you'll get a bad in-store salesperson that only cares about your card swipe.

by jasode 2y ago

JoshTriplett 2y ago

That is an excellent reason not to go to such places. For some stores, "we don't work on commission" is a selling point to the customer.

dwaite 2y ago
I think it tends to push to the extremes. Either it provides an incentive structure that retains knowledgable salespeople and provides a huge customer benefit, or it winds up being toxic for both the employees and customers.
- devilbunny 2y ago
  Commissions work best when the customer and sales staff have long relationships and a decent knowledge of their markets. That's rarely the case at retail and pushes more hard-sell types. In B2B, it's about a relationship and trust. My FIL sells clothes. He's the middleman between the manufacturers and the stores. He has a territory and based on what's happening in other stores in the region he can steer them toward the right stuff for their store. I.e., what's this store's target age range, how affluent is the area, and so on. In return, when he does a good job with them, they will learn to trust his advice on what will generally sell well, and he ends up getting better commissions. He sells about a dozen lines from about six manufacturers, though about three or four of the lines tend to make up the bulk of his income. Since he's very good at his job, he can demand higher commissions than other salesmen just to take a line on. He's got the on-the-ground relationships, and a manufacturer will give him a bigger cut because he's not going to have canceled orders, returns, or headaches for them.
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
    Iterated prisoner's dilemma vs regular Same reason people are mean on the Internet
  - harimau777 2y ago
    As I understand it, that was one of the advantages of department stores. When you went to the jewelry section, for example, to buy your spouse an anniversary gift, the person working there was often the same person who recommended the jewelry you bought last anniversary.
    - devilbunny 2y ago
      In theory. Most staff at classic department stores didn't last quite that long. There's a local chocolate shop that has lots of turnover because they hire college girls to staff them most of the time. But the owner is on top of it, keeping good records, and about two weeks before Valentine's Day, they call me and say, Devilbunny, this is so-and-so from Chocolate Shop By You, you bought some chocolate-covered strawberries last year, would you like to order again this year? Yes, here's my credit card, and I'll pick them up after 3 pm on the 13th. Thank you, see you then. I walk up to the window, pick them up, bring them home, and say happy Valentine's. It's really the only thing she wants (I get her flowers but not roses - why be so cheesy when every other flower is like, half-price?) specifically. They make it easy to spend money with them instead of someone else. I don't have to wait more than a minute - they have a dedicated window for prepaid orders. That's service, and it's worth the small premium.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  In the old world where people knew each other, knew this was a lifelong sales relationship, and we saw each other at the grocery store, church, it worked pretty well. In the modern world where we are as anonymous to each other in person as online it doesn't really. Back when I was a rich tech guy, the local Nordies would hold all the Ugg styles in my daughter's size and the next up for my daughter when the season started because the sales lady that worked with my daughter and wife had a relationship with them. It was an AMAZING shopping experience for my daughter. She was seen by the sales person. She felt special. And my daughter had some issues that made her feel less than special. But here was this beautiful sophisticated sales person not only seeing her, but helping her in areas she felt poor self worth in. And if you make my daughter feel special then I'm coming back to you year after year. But if I go in and am a random person to you, and you are to me, why pay Nordies prices?
Earw0rm 2y ago
Yep, and they trade on reputation, thinking that will let them off on other factors. We have a store here, John Lewis, whose tech department sells lots of Macs and high-end TVs. So when they got in some 17 inch HP android tablets, I figured, surely they can't be _too_ bad? This was before iPad Pros, and I liked the idea of a large tablet. The thing was absolute garbage, stuck on an already-obsolete Android release. At least their returns policy was accommodating, but that's half a day I'll never get back.
bluedino 2y ago
Best Buy always pushed this. All the salespeople seem uninterested, uninformed hard to find, and all they want to do is sell the warranty/accessories.
- tshaddox 2y ago
  Good! There’s no way they would be an expert on TVs anyway. I go elsewhere for information about TVs. The store is for simply purchasing the TV.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    Yes, we now all trust the random internet 'experts' whose profit motives we have zero knowledge or insight into.
    - tshaddox 2y ago
      Real experts can provide good explanations that can be independently verified by oneself and by a large community.

vector_spaces 2y ago

I realize you aren't saying this, but note that while commissions are common among larger department stores, it doesn't hold true in general across specialist retailers that every staff member is on commission. For instance, if you go to a specialty cheese or wine shop, or a fishmonger or supplement store or even smaller local department stores, it's entirely possible to meet a sales clerk on commission, but it's also (perhaps more) likely that you won't. Also, RE staff commissions -- this isn't always bad for the customer as some here are implying. Although there are stores where commissions can come directly from the manufacturer, or where some manufacturers offer staff commissions but some don't -- this tends to be bad, nearly always. On the other hand, if the commission comes from the employer, this can incentivize staff to build deeper product knowledge and awareness of tradeoffs between different brands and products (not to mention: mindfulness of trends, customer feedback and return rates, etc), which IME leads to better service and better sales for everyone involved. I mean, yes, sure, it can also lead to employees simply parroting whatever they learned from the manufacturer brochure. YMMV Brick & mortar retailers that don't provide commissions at all often still allow manufacturer led trainings of staff -- the retailer views this as essentially free staff development and morale building by increasing staff product knowledge while often providing free product or steep discounts. Sometimes manufacturers will straight up give away prizes unrelated to the products they sell (I've seen supplement vendors give away iPhones or cash prizes, for instance). Sales reps sometimes build personal relationships with certain retail workers they know have influence over purchasing or merchandising decisions. Often this is explicitly forbidden, but in practice virtually every company that has rules like this also rarely enforces them In any case, my point is that commission structures do not imply that you're getting bad/misleading information from sales staff, and lack of commission structures don't mean that sales staff are free of undue influence from sales reps and manufacturers or that they otherwise aren't incentivized somehow to push a particular product on you.

RGamma 2y ago
It's probably a good idea if you can find a self-employed expert for that specialty (like a decorator or kitchen builder) and have them make recommendations on what to get where. There's a (real, ahem) risk that you'll get a bad in-store salesperson that only cares about your card swipe.