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?

And my interpretation of your other comments is unchanged

That's fine. My interpretation of your comments is that you are too defensive about working in retail to be reasonable.

Btw, I have done retail work, bar work, waitressing, and every 'menial' job in-between. I didn't think it made me 'lower' than anybody else, but I also wasn't delusional about how replaceable I was, or about the fact that keeping customers happy (within reason) literally kept me employed.

Haven't read the whole tweet but honestly calling the OP the worst kind of customer is absurd. Most shops have a policy that they close the doors at a certain time e.g. 6pm and the tills close at 6.15pm allowing people in the ship to be herded to the till to pay. Switching tills off at 6.00pm exactly seems silly and doesn't allow the staff any discretion - imagine if it had been a huge sale they had been working on for the past 15mins and someone wasn't spending thousands on furniture.
Many people work and many of us put in extra time to the normal working week so don't think retail is any different with a few minutes here and there adding up!!

FWIW I have worked in a bank, in retail, in cafes, restaurants, pubs, offices all over the country (dps job meant we moved quite frequently). I have never once in all my years of working ever clocked off on time. You would always add on something around an extra 30-45 minutes at the end of the day for bits and pieces that needed clearing, customers paying or finishing off what ever. So this getting shirty with customers that dare to come in a few minutes before closing is something new.

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

Saying
I'm glad Laura Ashley treat their staff better
How is making them unemployed treating their staff better. They are a company that is on their last legs. How much more money would they take each year if their tills were able to sell that one last item in each shop each day.

I don't think op YABU.

As for organising my time if a shop is open 9-6 and I am at work till 5.30 and it takes 20 minutes to get to the store how would I be able to organise my time better to get into the store and complete my purchase without entering the store in the last 10 minutes.

When I worked in retail I used to lie tell people the tills were automatically switched off at closing time so they'd hurry the fuck up

You take exception to Laura Ashley. I take exception to customers like you. I used to work in retail. I frequently worked past the time I was paid til: 6.15. And the shop closed at 6. We had to tidy, hoover and mop the floor before we left, which was never before 6.30. There was no bloody overtime and the pay was crap so the likes of you made me work 15 mins extra for free. Inform yourself before making such ridiculous statements.

No Mummy I still take exception at Laura Ashley.
It is not OPs fault that retail stores treat their staff so appallingly. Imo this is the result of a rampant capitalist culture where big business gets away with bad and sometimes even illegal practices and workers unions are demonised as communist and grasping but hey ho.

Again, a situation like the one you describe means you had an employer problem not a customer problem.

I work in a pharmacy - very small, yet 3 or 4 people will rock up at 5.57 every day. Some wanting antibiotics for little ones - which have to be made up, taking 10 min or so, some with queries on medication which can take 30min to resolve. Yet others who are on holiday and haven't brought enough medication with them so can we just.... taking a whole heap of time.

We can't turn people away, so I miss my bus, can't pick up my kids on time, have to make any appointments I have with an hour or so's delay built in - every day. It gets a bit wearying.

And we are a tiny business out in the backwaters, how frustrating it must be for shop staff in a busy centre. Perhaps that is why their tills shut.

If the OP was the only person in the shop, then it would be good customer service to make some sort of accommodation - but then again a picture is not an emergency purchase and if you serve one person after 6, EVERYONE wants the same.

I'm interested to know what you would do if a customer came in a 5pm, browsed, tried on clothes, joined the queue at 5.50, but didnt reach the front of the queue due to a difficult customer ahead of them until 6.01. Would you take their items off them and say sorry, too late, bye bye?

How do you prevent that happening?

Laura Ashley's like-for-like furniture sales dropped 8 per cent last year, while decorating sales fell 6.4 per cent and fashion down 3.2 per cent. Online sales grew by 2.1 per cent on a like-for-like basis.

These results are being repeated at retailers across the country. Customer service and the experience offered by bricks and mortar retailers needs to go above and beyond expectations if retailers want to survive on the high street.

OP - YANBU and retailers across the country need to wise up to turning away their customers' money.

This is why stores close and people shop from the home.

Which of course leads to a million of threads about how unreasonable delivery drivers are.

I've not heard of the tills shutting down. When I worked at M&S we sometimes said this to people who got a trolley at 5:28pm but we generally encouraged people to buy their item and go. We wouldn't have told them to come back tomorrow!

YABU

They close at 6, you should've made your purchase before that time.

Staff need to close up and go home after a long day, how selfish of you.

I'm not entirely sure what is so difficult to understand here. The words 'closing time' are fairly self explanatory and kind of give you a clue. The til shut down automatically, because it was closing time.

This happened to me before, it was a pain in the arse but I understood how it happened. It was, you know, closing time. (Those pesky words again).

YANBU OP! What a weird way to run a business. No wonder Laura Ashley always seems to be empty.

You are not being unreasonable. Stupid system to shut down the tills at 6pm. They won't keep custom that way.
For all the 'I work in retail'ers, so did I and we were paid for as long as we worked. It was acknowledged that there were often last minute shoppers and stragglers, so if tills closed at 6pm, you were paid until 6.30pm while you finished up. Nobody downs tools immediately and just walks out. You should look at your employers and not customers to point the finger.

YADNBU OP!

I used to work in a well known Department store and we'd have customers wanting bra fits at 2 minutes before closing time- once, I had to stay for 30 minutes after the shop closed to do a bra fit on a customer who came in before closing time. But the fact is, they came in BEFORE closing, when the service was advertised as being available, so it wasn't their fault- we had to serve them.

I find it ridiculous how people are blaming you for being an 'unreasonable customer' when you went into a shop and began a transaction BEFORE closing time. It is not unreasonable for you to expect to make a purchase when you are in the MIDDLE of a transaction. What a stupid policy from Laura Ashley to close the tills but I also don't believe that there wasn't a way for the store manager to override this and I feel that the shop assistants' customer service was not very good either.

I'd suggest that if you're working in retail even though you clearly hate it, you don't have a huge number of better options. Probably not advisable to bite the hand that feeds you.

Well that's bullshit.

I work in fast food, which is a kind of retail, and I love it. I enjoy my job and enjoy going to work each day, despite people like you thinking it's "menial" and that I "don't have better options".

I think Laura Ashley have a daft system if a till shuts down mid transaction. Unless people buy 60-70 items a time regularly at ten to six? The op was at the till in enough time to purchase, the price was checked, the sale couldn't complete. The staff AND the op were left in a ridiculous situation.

The store and staff will be monitored on their sales. Hypothetically if the picture was expensive and the op can't return everyone's lost out.

I think Laura Ashley have a daft system if a till shuts down mid transaction.

She wasn't mid transaction, though. The price was simply checked.

Had the item actually gone through the till to be bought, the till wouldn't have shut down until payment had been made.

Nope, YANBU.

A lot of people don't seem to have read your posts. If you're at the till enquiring about an item at closing time, you should be allowed to buy said item! Telling someone to leave and come back the next day when you're in the middle of helping them is pretty shit, imo. I've never heard of tills closing automatically either - sounds like an excuse to prevent customers from arguing back!

I've worked in retail for ten years and I've never not been paid for staying late. Where I am now, my contract is 10-6 but if I'm needed early or late, I'm always paid for it and it's been the same when I worked for one of the big retailers too.

In OP's situation, my manager would possibly have offered to take over and let me clock out if he thought it was going to take a while, but I'm normally happy enough to stay an extra few minutes to help a customer.

So this getting shirty with customers that dare to come in a few minutes before closing is something new.

No one got shirty. The staff member was polite

I was referring to people on this thread. Why are people missing buses, surely you know you are going to stay about 20--30-40 minutes after closing time so adjust your travel plans accordingly.

Do people actually read OPs anymore?

She didn't rush in and get a mountain of stuff and expect to get it through, she was in the middle of a transaction - the OP can reasonably expect, if the shop assistant hasn't said anything, that her transaction will be completed.

It isn't expecting retail assistants to work after hours, it isn't demeaning them. It's a reasonable assumption that something you're in the middle of can be completed.