Cultural Differences or just awkward ?

[mumski]

We own a sweet shop where everything is in glass jars and we weight out the sweets for customers and usually customers ask for example for a 100 grams of pear drops or a mix of 50 grams of this and 50 grams of that.
That's fine . We love our customers and pride our selves on our customer service. However we get customers often from an Asian background who will ask for one sweet from a dozen jars. This isn't a problem when it's quiet but when it's busy such as a Saturday it causes mayhem as you can imagine. . I want to understand, is this a cultural thing and what is the reason?. We also had someone in from Mexico who started taking the lids off jars and eating the sweets until we gently explained she need to pay first. What do people think?

I think you need a "Fill a bowl/packet for £x" approach. Not sure it's down to a particular culture, or at least I can't see the connection.

If you pride yourself on your customer service then just give them the sweets they want in the quantities they want, whether they are Asian or not?

FWIW I'm white and I would like to choose a mix of sweets too.

I dont know why but i would like to know where your shop is because i love sweet shops like this.

This thread is making me nostaligic.

Memories of walking up to the sweet shop with my DSis on a Sunday afternoon.

OP maybe a mixed jar can be an option?

If you don't want to do it then have a policy (with clear signs up) of 25g or whatever minimum of each type of sweet.

I do see the point you're making. It's not pick n mix.

No point doing it then complaining about it on here though. If you own/run the shop you can decide this is something you don't want to do and refuse to do it!

How on earth is the OP racial profiling?! FFS. It's a perfectly valid question to ask if there's any differences in how sweets are sold in other countries and cultures, as taking only one out of different glass jars is bonkers and definitely not the normal way of doing it here!
(Fond memories of the local sweet shop when I was little and the shopkeeper with his rows of glass sweets behind the counter.)
Sherbet lemons, cola cubes etc. You get a bag of sweets, usually a quarter weight. Not take one out of each!

Everyone knows the difference between sweets sold from tubs and chosen individually (10p mixture anyone?) and those sold from jars by weight.

Would posters genuinely expect sweets from jars sold by weight to be counted individually? Really?

See this is why I avoid anywhere that sells sweets by the jar because it's too confusing to buy them

Our local sweet shop happily lets us have pick and mix. So you could have one rhubarb and custard, one sour apple etc although I like them too much to only get one. Maybe tell them you don't do pick and mix or make up pick and mix bags in advance.

Also been in sweet shops in Mexico and mostly definitely you are expected to pay for stuff although we were given tasters of various sweets that we couldn't figure out the translation for to see if we liked them. If the jars aren't behind the counter, maybe she thought they were tasters or was just totally cheeky.

Now I have an urge for a giant bag of pear drops.

Can I have a bag of sherbet strawberries please op? Maybe some cola cubes and kop kops too?

I don't think it's a cultural thing, probably more down to the individuals. Eating before buying, isn't cultural, I would say it's just rude or trying to be cheeky. Perhaps you could start selling mixed sweets, or saying that there is a minimum weight sold per jar.

You need to sell mixed bags. And I'm gonna go on.holiday to Mexico if it's ok to eat sweets in shops there.

Also different jars are differnet prices so I can;t even see how you work out the cost of a bag of lots of different mixed sweets.

Our shop will quite happily mix sweets for you as long as you're buying a minimum amount.

Our shop growing up had individual sweets in trays when we were going. Penny sweets I think we called them.

Yes, we had both growing up - penny sweets in trays (some were a halfpenny!) which you would put into a bag yourself, and jars where you would ask for "a quarter of chewy nuts" or whatever. It just sounds like some of your customers have got that muddled up.

We have an old fashioned sweet shop near us that does both - jars, and "penny" sweets in trays, behind the counter though, that you can mix and match - they are sold by weight as well though, not by sweet like they used to be.

When you say Asian, do you mean people of Asian origin who are obviously from the Uk or do you mean Asians from Asia who are visiting here.

Possible ideas are:

Asians from Asia visiting might not know what the sweets are and therefore fancy having a selection. Nothing worse than buying a lot that you wont like.

Asians from here - maybe fancy a selection.

I'd go with pp and have selection packs ready for a saturday.

I don't think it is an Asian thing. I am white British and in those specialist chocolate shops it is very common indeed to take one or two of a variety of different specialist chocolates to go into your box. Cheap sweets - I can see why it's a nuisance for you so just say yo uwon't do it.

The UK Woolworths etc has a very very long tradition of "pick and mix" surely, nothing to do with Asians at all.

The onkly Asian issue is the huge diabetes risk genetically. Most UK Asians would be better off not eating any sweets or sugar at all.

2 oz or 25g was the min weigh of sweets and a quarter min purchase ie you could mix two sorts yourself in a bag. But the old fashioned shop by us defo does mixed jars of favourites ie colas, bananas, dolly mixtures, bon bons etc

Is it very British to not think of easy solutions like pre-mixed bags of sweets where there is a demand for them whatever the motivation (or ethnicity) of the customer is?

Coconut mushrooms

Are you by any chance on the Island?

That is the only place, in the Old Village, I have recently seen sweet shops like the one you have, very sadly but love going to when we go over

I would just say every bag must have at least 10 sweets in or how ever many you decide, rather than weight cos I would have no idea how many coconut mushrooms you get for 25g

Also, the weight differences between individual sweets would make mixed jar/bag difficult to price, unless you costed by heaviest sweet you would loose money each time

Also, it depends what type of sweet it is cos if coconut mushrooms then coconut could come off and stick to other sweets

Or lemon bonbons the lemon sugar would come off

Mixed jar/bag of sweets that have wrappers could work, about same weight but no transference onto other sweets but charge for heaviest sweets though

would love to visit your sweet shop

The Lindt shop encourages you to mix and match as well. I think that's by 100g though, so you have to sell your first-born child to afford it.

I'm salivating now at the thought of going to an old-fashioned sweet shop. I guarantee nowhere will sell my favourites - chewing nuts, kola kubes and sweet tobacco - anymore!