To think retail stores will never survive if they don’t let customers try things on?!!

[TheNewLook]

How are we supposed to give them our money when we can’t try anything on? Nobody want to schelp into town, buy a tonne of clothes, trail them home only to return most of it?

Same with online shopping. I return far more than I keep. It’s an exhausting process. Ordering, opening, trying, parceling up and waiting at the post office!

Let us try things on!!

I don’t care if the person who tried it on before me was harbouing Covid. It’s highly unlikely to live long enough on fabric to be able to contaminate me afterwards.

Of course i don’t agree with people being rude to staff or not following the rules but I think being annoyed at people for browsing or trying things on in a clothes shop is a bit much.

@MadameBlobby too bad you think that. government covid rules for retail tell us customers should NOT be browsing....in,get what you need, then out again. its not a leisure activity

people do not sanitise hands as much nowadays....and also,touching faces? they do this all the time fiddling with masks, removing them etc etc

staff cannot get 'signed off'.

customers need to work with us or retail will be closed. you cannot get everything online!

well, @GirlCrush No. Sorry but no. Customers WILL NOT consistently comply with sanitiser, masks, distancing ... none of it

all i can say is that the UK has become a very peculiar place and every time i see threads like this I'm a bit more sure i'm never coming back. PP mentioned Italy is doing this fine, as is Germany. What makes people in the UK so special that they can't follow a few simple requests for the good of everyone? It is strangely disturbing, to be honest.

You can’t try things on when shopping online- that seems to be doing ok.

I went jeans shopping with adult DD the other week. My car has quite heavily tinted windows in the rear so she bought her jeans, hopped in the back of the car outside the store and tried them on there.

On a sanitiser note, went in a store at the weekend to be barked at by a woman behind a counter wearing no PPE herself to "USE THE SANITISER", I reached in my pocket to use my own as it's not as harsh on my skin and smelly as some of the ones the shops have out and she demanded to know if it was 60% proof (it was I add). I left the shop.

@Brefugee Most do, I don't know where all this "Absolutely NO-ONE EVER wears a mask, sanitises their hands or social distances, NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON" comes from.

@GirlCrush if you're wearing a mask and gloves, and ensure that you sanitise your hands before you touch your face, and ensure that you keep your distance - all things that you have control over - then your risk is going to be fairly low.

Making disparaging comments about those who are genuinely exempt on the assumption that they're all faking is, frankly, a shitty attitude. Ensuring that anyone who comes into your shop has a miserable experience, because how DARE they come in and spend money, is a fast track to finding you have no customers, no shop and no job. Attitudes like yours are why I actively avoid shops wherever possible now.

@AmuckAmuckAmuck I had a shop assistant recently refuse to let me in a store until I had used HER sanitiser. She was so shitty with me that I made a complaint to the store manager, which I would normally not have done because everyone, generally, is doing their best to cope in difficult circumstances and I get that some people just reach the end of their tether sometimes. The manager was most apologetic and said that sanitiser was their policy but it didn't have to be theirs.

If they wear no mask that’s fine there are exemptions

I have worked retail since this started

It’s absolutely true that the public are not complying in stores. Majority are not, dress it up how you like. Those not wearing a mask will get a less involved service. I’m not looking on their phones at something they’ve seen online and are looking for. They are not getting within 2 metres of any of us. As it should be

It’s absolutely true that the public are not complying in stores. Majority are not, dress it up how you like

Maybe it's specific to where you are; where I live (which has a large shopping mall as well as outside areas) most people are. It's very rare to see anyone without a mask whether it's in the shopping centre or a supermarket.

Or maybe people aren't complying with pointless rules and that's seen as 'non compliance' - I've walked in the 'exit' side of a door if it's closest to me and no-one else is there. Common sense says it's only necessary if there are others around to avoid.

Most shops here have hand sanitiser at the entrance and although they don't insist you use theirs (I have my own which is the WHO recipe which leaves your hands lovely and soft) but why would anyone be arsey about using it if the staff ask you to?

"barked at you" to use hand sanitiser? well frankly, given the attitude i see here on so many threads you were probably the 937th person she'd had to talk to about hand hygeine that day. Staff in shops have a lot to contend with, and a lot are probably worried about losing their jobs. Add in stroppy entitled customers who think they should be treated like a pasha for deigning to spend money there, and I'd be grumpy too.

This pandemic is showing the absolutely revolting side to a lot of people and situations. It's staggering.

I’ve been on threads with other retail workers @BrightYellowDaffodil

It’s not just here sadly

Retail staff are not ‘barking’ at you..... they are scared. Customers don’t seem to see that though

We’ve been working our stars off since March
Staff were furloughed
Staff now isolating

Hardly any of us in to deal with this.

@Brefugee

Most shops here have hand sanitiser at the entrance and although they don't insist you use theirs (I have my own which is the WHO recipe which leaves your hands lovely and soft) but why would anyone be arsey about using it if the staff ask you to?

"barked at you" to use hand sanitiser? well frankly, given the attitude i see here on so many threads you were probably the 937th person she'd had to talk to about hand hygeine that day. Staff in shops have a lot to contend with, and a lot are probably worried about losing their jobs. Add in stroppy entitled customers who think they should be treated like a pasha for deigning to spend money there, and I'd be grumpy too.

This pandemic is showing the absolutely revolting side to a lot of people and situations. It's staggering.

She did bark yes, and I doubt I was the 937th person as the shop was empty and it was reasonably early.

I wasn't arsey in any way. She was very much the one who took attitude as soon as I walked in the door. I was wearing gloves so had barely had a chance to pull them off when she shouted. I don't expect to be treated like a pasha, a 'good morning' or a 'would you mind sanitising' would have been preferable.
Maybe she was having a bad day, who knows, but if me deciding not to spend money in a store with an exceptionally rude woman running it makes me the bad guy then I'm happy to wear that badge.

Retail staff are not ‘barking’ at you..... they are scared

Oh gosh, I didn't see you there in the totally empty store! Were you hiding in the back to know what she said or have you got some kind of second sight?

And if she was 'scared' perhaps she'd have been wearing some form of PPE herself maybe? A mask? A visor? A plastic screen around her counter at least.

Or maybe, covid or no covid there are some bloody miserable fuckers out there who just enjoy barking orders at people.

I agree - all I've been able to buy for jeans/bottoms are the same ones I already have that I know fit in a different colour.

Getting tedious.

Oh although I have bought a coat. I illegally tried it on in front of a mirror on the shop floor.

I was pretty certain it would fit fine and I wanted it.

Plus how's it much different to everyone handling them flicking through the railings anyway.

I’ve been on threads with other retail workers

And that's probably part of the problem - if you all tell each other how terrible it is, you'll start to only see that point of view.

You seem to think that retail staff should be allowed to behave as they please, that not one member of retail staff has been unnecessarily rude to a customer ever throughout Covid AND that it it is ALWAYS the customer at fault.

We're all scared and worried, but shop staff who behave like arseholes - and there have been some I've experienced behaving like this for no good reason - will be the ones we remember and whose stores we avoid both now and in future. There is no excuse for rudeness and if you think otherwise then a customer interaction job probably isn't for you.

@PumpkinsPatch

Oh although I have bought a coat. I illegally tried it on in front of a mirror on the shop floor.

I was pretty certain it would fit fine and I wanted it.

Plus how's it much different to everyone handling them flicking through the railings anyway.

I saw a girl get a telling off for that in Primark. You could tell from her face it embarrassed her as the worker wasn't exactly discrete about it. Felt a bit sorry for her really.

@GirlCrush - the problem is most of our retail industry is a leisure activity. They need people to shop for fun, not just what they need, in order for most chains to survive.

It should worry anyone who works in fashion retail.

Shops also need to put stock in their shops! I've been astonished at both M&S and Clarks for how little stock they have, yet it's all available online. Same attitude in the shops when the staff are asked for specific sizes/colours etc - basically you're just told to go online and order it yourself. Er - just what's the point of shops if you're just told to go online???

It’s funny how many threads about changing rooms include staff finding disguising stuff a customer has done... like literally shitting into clothes/in the changing room. But yeah, with many toilet facilities closed now, I’m SURE there would be much less of that now

Maybe I’m unlucky or maybe it’s because I tend to buy lots of things at once or twice a year, so I end up trying at least 10-20 items when I do go clothes shopping ... but every single time I find a top or dress with lipstick / make up smears around collar area when someone’s pulled it off and wiped half their face off.

Absolutely right they should keep changing rooms shut.

Thank god im not in fashion retail then!

Retailers have a duty of care to the staff. Hence toilets which are shared with public become ‘staff only’ .... ours are spotless now the public don’t have access!

Though saying that I did think of MN today and the outrage it would cause as I allowed a mum with toddler to use our disabled loo which is seperate! No matter what we do we can’t get it right eh!

Oh, and I of course BARKED ‘you are welcome to use this toilet as it’s an emergency’ right at our customer

My husband needed a suite jacket for his sisters wedding last week. We went to matalan and just tried it on on the shop floor and we bought it . People are browsing and touching all the clothes anyway so I don't see the difference

Thing is shops need customers to want to spend money in their shops. Retail workers may well feel scared due to the risk of Covid but they will be at risk of unemployment if they continue to alienate customers.

I've bought barely any clothes since lockdown was lifted. My experience of shopping in store has been that retail staff are increasingly rude and abrupt. It just puts me off wanting to go shopping and spending my hard earned money.

I would assume that buying and returning after trying on at home is riskier for transmission, really. If the customer trying things on leaves what they don’t want on a rail without a staff member being involved, you could rest that whole rail for a bit if that made any difference. Seems like you could control the contact more with stuff tried on in store.

I don’t work in retail, though, so possibly they are taking things I haven’t considered into account. Like amount of people in store and time they spend there etc.