Pretty Woman Moment

Oh, probably way out of your price range, mine to!

Exactly.

I looked like a vagabond at the airport recently and the guy at Fortnum & Mason still treated me like a Queen, and I wasn’t even buying anything, I just wanted a free carrier bag, he insisted on giving me a free tote.

I've had this happen to me. I was in the market for a new vacuum cleaner and was set on a Dyson one. Went to the store and enquired because I wanted to see if before buying, and the sales lady was very off with us while we were asking questions. "You do know it costs £300" she said condescendingly. I said we were aware but she still was not nice about it. We left went down the road to John Lewis and bought it from there. No sales commission for you love.

Not helpful, I know, but I clicked on this thread hoping for a story of your ‘big mistake’ moment, OP!

It's a fucking door. Who needs a three thousand or whatever pound door? Maybe she was trying to be helpful in dissuading you from wasting thousands of pounds on a door.

How bizarre?! These folks are paid commission to get people like you to buy stuff. You'd think she'd be falling over herself to upsell you the most expensive one. If she really couldn't be arsed to question your budget.

Unless they are primarily used to selling directly to trade, and you didn't look enough like the owner of a construction business?! Like you weren't wearing a high Vis and work boots?!

I have done this kind of work in my youth. I would guess it’s nothing remotely related to you.

Sounds like she was really pissed off to be there for whatever reason and her revenge was to bring in as few sales as possible. She might get as little as a tenner for making a sale so 🤷‍♀️

Yup - Just after I'd had twins we were looking to trade in our old car for a bigger one... We spent some time with a salesman at a Volvo dealer but decided against in the end.
A few months later he came into my clinic room in his GP surgery (I was a practice nurse in uniform) and I instantly recognised him and mentioned it....he asked why we hadn't bought the Volvo...and was it because couldn't we afford it....I simply said it wasn't that and that we had gone for a Mercedes instead!

I tend to get the opposite - I am quite well spoken and reasonably well dressed (in my high end charity shop bargains) but not well-off. I'm also middle-aged. I get people trying to flog me stuff that's embarrassingly out of my budget.

To my surprise, the owner rang me and thanked me, saying he wouldn't have known otherwise, and that he was going to have a serious talk with the salesman. They also sent me a bottle of expensive floor cleaner.

I thought you were going to say wine.

Yes, this would have been the full Pretty Woman experience.

Except for the hooker part, of course.

it has nothing to do with being pretty. Its about salespeople making assumptions about what you can afford based on how you look. It happened to me once when we were househunting. We turned up at the showhome in very casual clothes in a very muddy but brand new car. The sales lady who was sat there alone (weather had been foul hence the filthy car) said she thought we probably wouldn't be interested in the the development as the houses were "executive designed" whatever that means but as she wasn't busy she could "let us have a peep" DH had just been promoted to the London office of a multinational energy company and they were funding the move. This btw was years before Pretty Woman came out.

I get this a lot. Hilariously, I'm pretty well off and can usually afford the items in question, so I just inwardly sigh and think of Pretty Woman.

But I'm also a covert mystery shopper, so sometimes it's all on camera.

Best one was some snooty lady in a new homes development. She obviously clocked there may be an issue halfway through being atrocious and started looking very shifty indeed.

Ooh yes, I have. 2013.
We went into the sales office for a small group of new builds on the site of an old brewery. We asked about one of the plots that was being advertised and asked about Help to Buy (the scheme where you put down 5% and 20% was a government loan). We were 29 and 28.

The woman (Maureen - still remember her name) looked us up and down, said the house was too much for first time buyers, too big for 2 of us and the scheme wasn't available on new builds. A) She was wrong on all three counts and B) we were not first time buyers. We had bought a house 6 years earlier that was already SSTC.

We went back the next day and spoke to a lovely sales rep who got the commission. When we moved in she was still in the sales office and she said that we hoped we were happy with ourselves doing HTB as there's "no such thing as a free lunch". Very happy actually - we paid off the loan 5 years later and only have 7 years until we are mortgage free.

You should have gone back later and said "Remember us? We've just bought a door hand carved by blind monks in Austria, with a solid ruby handle, BIG mistake, HUGE!"

“Sigh” it has nothing to do with being pretty. It’s a reference to the film Pretty Woman in which the snooty sales assistant in an expensive boutique assumes Julia Roberts’ character cannot afford to buy anything based on her appearance.

You must complain, this person is disgraceful

I think it means attractive people get excellent service, plain people get offered cheaper stuff. So if you look uninteresting you get effectively pushed out the door.

Ive had this a few times in my life. Best one was at a dept store where i know it was commission on sales, Selfridges maybe?

I was early 20's (so a very long time ago!) looking at the Dior and Guerlain makeup counter and I was asking Qs about the foundations/blushers etc, could sense she was getting a bit pissy at helping me but fine, and i asked if there was a sample sachet of whatever foundation i was looking at, she said they only give samples out to people who will buy the products 🙄

Tbf i was just undecided between 2 foundations, so I picked out the bits Id been looking at - probably about £300 of stuff - and handed them to her colleague with an admittedly equally knobbish "they'll do for today" and paid in cash for equal measure 😂😂 the colleague gave me loads of samples and a really nice free makeup bag that I've still got.

I love thinking about that when it pops into my head 😃

I've had many a moment like these lol 😆 it can be quiet annoying because she is clearly judging and it's so rude specially because they are in sales it's not the best paid job in the world ,!
It happens with retailer workers as well !
I take no notice anymore and if they do do it I will embarrass them or make them skirm when they realise that I actually do have the funds it's all because I won't dress conservatively or dress In a way the screams money or the car I drive is not huge enough !
It happened recently in car show room and I paid cash for a brand new car outright from my bank the chap looked so shocked !
Another time a guy who came to help with fitting a log burner kept going on about a basic log burner and saying things to cut the price ! He obviously didn't get the job I went with a lovely down to earth guy and it cost me more than a new boiler did lol 😁
I don't know how these people get sales!

Anyone who's done trade shows as a business will know this and just shows some naiveness from show visitors. If you sense a sales rep being weird, they're obviously looking for industry clients so just move on right away.

Loads of people here are comparing OP's experience to being in a shop (aka that Pretty Woman scene) which is totally mixing things up.

A trade show is not a shop.

You can be the richest person in the home show but a company is not going to fawn all over you because you want to buy 1 door from them. They're at the event to secure contracts worth 5, 6 or even 7 figures. Obviously there ARE exceptions. Some sellers are happy to collect smaller sales but it really depends on the business. It just means OP didn't really read the room correctly and she's not going to "win" or "spite" this company by purchasing a door from their competitor. They honestly don't care.

I don’t believe this kind of stuff happened as much as people claim. Salespeople have to be polite to even the worse customers. It sounds more like perception differences

There is a scene in ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ like this. Excellent!!