I made a mad dash to our local shopping centre with a window of 30 minutes and the brief was simple (or so I thought) – plain white leather sneakers.
I made my way straight to David Jones and over to the kid’s shoe department, which was a ghost town. Not another customer in sight and certainly no DJ’s staff. I inspected the shoes on display and found a pair that were perfect. I just needed to find the right size.
What happened next could best be described as a 15 minute hunting expedition. And as time went on – that’s exactly how it started to feel – like I was hunting an elusive, borderline extinct species called a David Jones salesperson.
I eventually found one, a good 30 metres from the kid’s shoe department but she couldn’t help me. Despite there not being a customer in sight, she was reluctant to leave her post in the women’s wear section.
She did radio someone to help me and suggested I make my way back over to the shoes and assured me someone would appear to assist. So I did. And I waited. And waited. And waited. Another 15 minutes and eventually a staff member with a mouthful of food came to then tell me that the size I wanted wasn’t available. In fact of the only three white options available, there were no size 2’s at all.
I sprinted over to the other side of the shopping centre to Myer, where the kids shoe department looked like a war zone. An empty one. Forget worrying about size availability, they didn’t stock a single white shoe. Now I’m late, annoyed and shoeless.
My last resort was a kid’s shoe store. Kid’s shoes, that’s all they do. Surely this would be the answer and I could just breeze in and get this ticked off in two minutes I didn’t have left.
I arrived at the store to find it shut (it was 1pm) with a sign that said ‘closed for staff lunch break, back in 45 minutes’.
Are you kidding me? You close your store at lunchtime for 45 minutes? With no context for how long ago that started by the way. Are you re-opening in five minutes or in 45 minutes? I waited for ten minutes then had to give up, as did three other customers. Precious customer traffic and sales literally walking away.
Now I fully understand the challenges today’s retailers are facing. As a retail business owner myself I totally get the realities of cost of living, consumer sentiment and staffing issues.
Staff are not easy to find and then there’s an understandable hesitation to invest in training for them to just leave. But what if you don’t train them and they stay?
And at what cost? To not be investing in staff and stock right now is not only compromising the customer experience, it’s counterproductive a to the point where you’d be better off closing the doors.
And not just for a 45-minute lunch break.
