To expect to be able to make a purchase at closing time.

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I was in Laura Ashley today just before closing looking to buy a picture, The assistant showed me the display item which was still marked up at full price and then went over to the tills to check the sale price for me.

Yes I'd like to buy it I replied - only to be told that sorry you can't do that today as the tills are closed now. I checked my phone, bang on 6pm, closing time. I queried this as I have never come across this before. I have been in plenty of shops that advise customers to go to the tills at closing time, but none who refuse to make a sale on the dot of closing.

I said as much to the assistant who looked apologetic and consulted senior assistant. The tills close themselves down at 6pm she advised me. if you want to buy it you'll have to come back in the morning. Don't worry the sale is on until Monday.

Is it unreasonable to expect to complete a purchase when I am already in the shop at closing time?

I take exception to shops who penalise customers for their own error and mostly shop online.

Goodbye retail jobs. Plenty of time to pick your kids up from school now.

I, for one, am an adult and don't need a count down

Funnily enough, so am I. One who assumes that if I'm in a shop and haven't been warned otherwise, they're happy to actually sell me stuff.

I have no sympathy for bricks-and-mortar retailers losing out to online retailers when I read about incidents like this. Clueless.

Has anyone ever been in a supermarket queue with a trolley full of shopping and been told they can't purchase it as the tills had closed? I am genuinely curious as i have also never heard of that. I am also fairly sure someone would have posted on aibu if that happened to them.
Op I agree with you. It sounds like if you hadn't needed to query the price you would have had time to pay.

shops...I don't know whereabouts you are but this is certainly not the case in London. There are massive queues once the doors shut.

Quite. And think how fucking inconsiderate this is to the staff.

Fellow Londoner here. In London you really have zero excuse for doing this - it's not like everything closes at 5.

I'm glad Laura Ashley treat their staff better.

YABVU.

Last minute customers are a PITA. When I worked in a bank there was always one who would come in 5 minutes before closing with masses of money to pay in. Some would even ring the doorbell after we shut the doors, looking all aghast that we had closed and demanding to be let in.

Has anyone ever been in a supermarket queue with a trolley full of shopping and been told they can't purchase it as the tills had closed?

No because I've never been so thick as to do my entire weekly shop 10 minutes before closing time.

If your actually being served at the point of closing then yes the purchase should of gone through! But i worked in retail and in a small shop in a small seaside town and boy did it piss me off when people would come in at 5:29 just to have a browse.

When I worked in a supermarket, they used to lock the trolleys up at like half an hour before close. So you could still come in, but you could only buy what you could carry.

This thread has really brought out some immature self entitled people i can't imagine been so inconsiderate that I'd demand to be served in a store that has closed for the day or is about to close. How about you all put as much effort into planning your days out instead of using it to feign outrage and scandal on a public forum ?

Does anyone else (who works in retail) get really irked at the other end too - the people who are there before you open, KNOW it's before you open, and they can see you in there so they bang on the door expecting to be let in? Admittedly, this happens far less frequently than the closing time ditherers, but it does happen.

The worst is when they see you GOING in, and try to follow you in! Like excuse you!?

Some people need to get their entire lives, seriously. Like... On a Friday, we're open from nine until nine. Twelve WHOLE HOURS. If you can't get it together in twelve whole hours, then I don't know what to tell you - except that I don't see that your poor organization needs to be my problem.

I can remember, before they changed the buses, I used to have an exceedingly short window to close the store and make it to the bus. There was only one bus an hour. If I missed the bus, I got to wait. In winter, it was dark, cold, and often rainy/snowy. Because of the dark it wasn't particularly safe, either. Did customers care? Did they fuck.

Someone commented on this thread about how many people probably shouldn't be working in retail "if we're so begrudging". I think the opposite is apparent here. I think it's so, so sad and kind of frightening how many people seriously do not seem to give two short shits about where the retail workers might need to be after their shift, just as long as they can buy their crap. Like, what a world, where a shirt could outstrip a staff member's ability to get home safely (worst case scenario I know, but it's true, and it's happened to me).

Oh, do calm down.

The OP was trying to to buy ONE item. Which purchase would have already been completed if the shop had priced it properly.

Some huge chips on shoulders being displayed here by retail workers.

Maybe if we were treated better on the whole, those "chips" on our shoulders wouldn't be so big. But there have been some comments on this very thread that tell me we shouldn't hold out for better treatment any time soon.

I worked on a till as a student - for us closing the tills took ages because we had to remove all the money and count it (and it often had to be recounted, etc). So quite imagineable that they'd want to avoid that for one customer.

Bit annoying for you OP but not a drama...

YANBU. This thread is weird. People ignoring the details on the OP'S posts and ranting on about their own pet hates.

So many weird things have been said:

The OP is making the retail worker work unpaid overtime. No, the rules of the shop and the particular circumstances meant that these workers had to see to customers beyond closing time. It is down to the company to pay for time worked. I know we are in an employers' market so to say. But the OP is not making the decision to force unpaid overtime, her role in the chain is to pay and she was being prevented from doing it due to a pricing error.

The OP is the worst kind of customer. Worse than the violent, rude, threatening, mean ones, the ones that spit or litter or use you as a decoy for shoplifting etc. That's you told OP! Serves you right for spending your money on a shop!

Considering the circumstances the OP was rude and inconsiderate. Erm... right. A moral judgement The state of customer service in the UK is appalling. Yes I have worked in retail and hate dealing wih the public (just my lovely personality ) but I would always behaved professionally. I never treated customers like I was doing them a favour. I thought that was a pretty basic part of your work ethic but hey.

So the message on this thread is loud and clear - paying customers are a nuisance and a pain in the arse! To quote another poster: Goodbye retail jobs. Plenty of time to pick your kids up from school now

there is a difference between supermarkets (& other large stores) and smaller outlets. In the former, it is usual for staff to clock in and out and to be paid for the hours they work, it is also usual for them to be staffed throughout the night for cleaning, stocking, pricing etc.

In a smaller store, people get paid set hours which inevitably do not cover the actual hours worked. So for a shop that closes at 20:00, that's when the staff stop getting paid, however they are expected to close down systems, cash up, mop the floor etc. Likewise in the morning, the shop might open at 8:00 (when staff start getting paid), but they need to get there before then to open up, set up, start up systems , put float in tills etc.

Maybe in future, shoppers should bear this in mind; that tired looking person is trying to get you out of the door because they still have (unpaid) work to do and maybe have a deadline to catch a train home in time to see their children before they are asleep?

Some huge chips on shoulders being displayed here by retail workers.

Don't work in retail & never have.

Just don't like self entitled people. HTH.

Some huge chips on shoulders being displayed here by retail workers.

Yes, also they are making themselves look pretty thick as well by not reading the OP, and equating the OP's reasonable request with other beligerent customers.

Sorry do you mean the OP's reasonable request whereby she expected an item to be put through the till after closing time?

BECAUSE OF THE SHOP'S ERROR, YES.

Fuck's sake.