>Read new column on www.fashionscene.nl of mine today! Click here for Dutch, and to read English read down under.
Fleur has been talking about birthday talks earlier already, but I’ve got a chatty family as well! Sometimes this is just a lot of twaddle, but there are interesting discussions involved as well.
Like last time, when my cousin brought up the statement of the BNN block-calender that was about the following: ‘Attractive salesgirls cause a low turnover with female customers’. This would be because to the female competition instinct that causes us women, who we feel like being prettier than us, permit less. BNN’s statement of the day turned out to be originally coming from from a research of a few years ago by Biance Price of the University of South Australia.
Wim Stuyk, a retail trainer, commented confirming to the result of this research and even extended it a bit with the fact that ‘extreme’ appearances are never ‘good’ with selling personnel. Too beautiful, hair standing out, piercings; most women can’t identify with this and identification is, according to him, a real boost to the turnover.
Because I”m in a clothingshop myself, and besides love to be in otherwise to shop around, this subject speaks to me a lot. I have to turn up every saturday all black to my job, to which only a white accent is allowed. Of course it’s going to cause recognition with customers and it’s easy to controll -black is black after all- but I get with these quotes, and my own experiences, pretty much the association with the sober Dutch expression: ‘Act normal, than you act crazy enough’.
Namely, I’m longing so much to be used as a walking dummy! Because I do actually understand that it’s going to be real pricy to turn every employee in the new collection each week, I would be glad with a little more freedom with the clothing regulation. I get really happy of stubborn and stylish salesgirls of fancy clothing shops, who give a shop character to my opinion. I’m afraid quotes like these are going to cause marketing to take less and less risks, and I think that’s a pity.
This statement is about a viscous circle to me. As we see salesgirls as examples, then we are going to keep that ‘Act normal, then you’re acting crazy enough’-mentality. I would really miss the different selling types, no matter which ones!
So, retail trainers in Holland, let us women just keep our competition instinct then will ‘our’ shops be a lot less boring!
