The Double-Edged Sword: An Installment of Commission-Based Negativity

Tonight one of the salespeople in my department was making his exit for the day. I asked him if he had cleaned any of the department prior to his departure. Nonchalantly, he said no. This is protocol so I asked him if he would spend some time cleaning. The gentleman acquiesced and began to straighten our area of the floor containing socks, pajamas and the ever-popular luggage and bags.

I want to note it is the expectation in our department that once you begin cleaning you are to hand-off any customers that approach you or stay and straighten even longer. This is a professional courtesy and equalizer as the salespeople who are working later shifts then have the same time-opportunity to sell as the early shift. Be reminded, successful high-volume selling in a clothing/accessory department can and does have a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time.

The exiting salesperson proceeded to engage a trio of customers that suddenly appeared in the area he was straightening, rather than hand them off. The customers ended up purchasing a number of high-end items including an extremely expensive messenger bag. Rather than feel happy for the good luck this person had having these customers fall into his lap, I and others in the department were frustrated. We were resentful and vindictive. These are nothing new, nor are the feelings unique to this salesperson. Yes, he built the sale himself (conjecture, based on observation) but the customers should have been passed, according to our structure. If we didn’t all work purely on commission this would be a non-issue.

Supposedly you can tell the true character of a person in an emergency. An apoplectic George Costanza comes to mind, literally shoving women and children out of the way to escape a small apartment fire. The same can be said about commission-based salespeople. If you don’t move fast enough someone else will make the sale instead. Their stats will look better and they’ll make more money than you, even if you possess similar selling skills, work ethic, team-playerness, etc. All with the same opportunity. There is the emergency. Out-sell or be out-sold. Fight for the money or go broke.

Some individuals might thrive in such a competitive environment to make a living. It can be an emotional roller-coaster, exaggerated at either end by the idea that qualitative (or even quantitative) strengths and solid work ethic may or may not ultimately produce success.

In an emergency, people find ways to make their own rules within the established rules. In an emergency people do whatever is necessary to survive, to look out for number one. Some people may compromise common ethical behavior in this pursuit, and many are just as quick to assume and quietly accuse others of compromising of ethical behavior.

Within the same company I have worked in three different stores and four different departments selling a variety of merchandise. Despite “team-based” department structuring I’ve consistently noticed most individuals on each staff are resentful of one another’s success. I am not immune. If you believe luck and chance make up a good part of volume selling than the good luck of others will doubtless be frustrating, especially without much of your own.

How natural is this occurrence? Clearly it is normative to feel resentful of others in this world of commissioned retail. Does this make us bad people, or just people?

Do You Gift-wrap?

No mouthful this time, but I wanted to introduce the intrigue of the next two weeks at my store, particularly in the men's division. In just this fortnight leading up to Christmas, New Years Eve, and our sale for men we should see a more varied group of customers than throughout the rest of the year. In the next few days I'll break down the many categories of shopper that continue to venture in our doors. Unique from our basic year-long customer, these individuals provide a great cross-section of money-spending motivations. For now, here is a promo pic from one of the greatest retail-based films in the history of the genre:


Maybe tomorrow if I'm feeling saucy I'll give it a more detailed review. Or I could get my friend to take a crack at it...

No New News, But...

There is some exciting conversation following the previous post!

Why Won't They Buy?: The Dark Side of Commission-Based Selling

Selling things is no easy job, I think we can all agree. Job performance is not ultimately determined by how hard or well you work, but whether a complete stranger decides based on their own agenda whether or not to spend money. It used to be that "level of service" was a major subjective metric that salespeople in my company could excel in and compensate for lower sales figures. In a surprising turn, we decided to begin evaluating salespeople purely based on their sales per hour. Service is still a priority, but now it is viewed as a given rather than a redeeming asset. This pressure to perform financially is further exacerbated by customers taking time to shop for and try on merchandise, only to shy away from the trigger and leave empty-handed. This is frustrating for commissioned salespeople, some of whom colloquially refer to this practice as "stroking," as it is effectively a waste of time. Besides the obvious financial loss, what frustrates me is I continue to fail to understand why people in healthy position to make a purchase ultimately decide not to.

With nearly two years of retailing behind me I am hardly a veteran, yet I have conducted hundreds of shopping experiences with customers of various ages, genders, nationalities and bank accounts. I have had countless instances of being "stroked" and yet remain puzzled about the spending habits of people in general.

1. This past Saturday a female in her twenties picked a tie she loved for a Christmas present for her boyfriend. I suggested she enhance the gift and pair it with a shirt. She loved the combination I put before her and we even had his size in the shirt! She gushed at how the colors and patterns were perfect for his style and that he would love it. Done deal. Let's ring, box and move on. "I just really need to think about it," she tells me. "Can you put these on hold until Monday?" "Sure," I say. But WHY? It is Saturday afternoon and we have just spent twenty minutes extolling the virtues of this gift-set. These are both moderately-priced items, relative to the department (Side note: the vast majority of customers enter our store understanding full-well we stock middle-to-upper end merchandise, provide renowned service and therefore exhibit a higher price-point than, say, Wal-Mart). The tie, which she is madly infatuated with, is nearly the last in the company. Yet, she must think. Waste. She leaves. She comes back Sunday. I am off. She wants to LOOK at the shirt and tie again. She asks her salesperson to - on my behalf - extend the hold until TUESDAY. This does not get done. The items are put back Monday when she fails to show up for them. This evening she appears, desperately seeking her precious tie-shirt combo. The tie is nowhere to be found. In the company. She is crushed. Crushed. I am beside myself with a strangely unmoving combination of frustration, apathy, and contentment. Ultimately we decide to go in a different direction and she purchases a watch, wallet, and men's style guide. Gifts for men are always better when you don't have to pick a size, anyway.

2. A man in his thirties walks in to the department. He is not looking for shirts and ties, but dress pants for work. Pants that fit. Great. I walk him into the proper department and start to tell him about the particular brand we're looking at, why it will be good for him, etc. He is on board. Great. He said he needs a couple of colors. Greater. We look at a different, higher-end brand as well that would give him the fit he's looking for. He tells me these are out of his price range. Less great, but no problem. He says nothing about the price of the original pants. He wants to try pleated so we try pleated. He doesn't like the look or fit (nor do I) so I suggest we do the same pant in a flat-front style. The size on the FF is small so I grab the next size up. It needs to have the waist taken in just a tad but the fit is great otherwise. The girlfriend mysteriously shows up as well. It is about seven o'clock in the evening so this is clearly not a lazy weekend afternoon time-wasting activity. The girlfriend approves of the pants. Done deal. Let's pick out some additional colors, call the tailor and mark these puppies up. My customer comes out of the dressing room fully dressed and carrying all the pants. "I'm really going to think about these," he states, while looking the label of the pants in the seam, appearing to make a mental note, "Thank you for all your help." Seriously? Half an hour wasted for me. Probably moreso for him. I was already at the store. Doubtful he lives across the street, he and the girlfriend had to spend some quality down-time to go round-trip for this fruitless escapade. He expressed his approval and like of the pants numerous times. "Just what I'm looking for," may have been uttered. Again, I have literally nothing to show for my time and effort other than the man's gratitude, though after hearing the same line from hundreds of men I consider it a mere formality. Again, I am perplexed as to why a customer who has taken the time to come shopping during ever-shortening leisure time for a specific set of items finds said items at what are noticeably acceptable price points still will hesitate and back down at the point of sale. I have read stories recently of retail guilt, that customers nationwide are spending less, not because they have less, but because they fear what other will think of them. Maybe this was a case. Maybe the pants were still too expensive. There are always plenty of unknowns when someone strokes you.

As salespeople we try to ask questions and eliminate as many of those unknown buying factors as possible so we can tailor our suggestions and selling techniques to best facilitate finalizing sales. Even if every condition provided is met, plenty of customers still choose to back down. I would love to conduct exit polls of each "stroke" customer. Though I never take it personally, I constantly find myself not understanding what went wrong. Even if everything from a sales standpoint was perfect you can still emerge uncompensated and frustrated. Such is the commissioned retail life. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a couple "easy" pops to showcase the flip-side of brief, unbridled and unexpected spending.

HOLY COW: City of Chicago Salvages Two Consecutive Days of Mediocre Selling

This Wednesday afternoon. I had grown hungry and anxious, not knowing what I was going to do for lunch. I knew I would think of something, but the weight of ambiguity weighed ever heavier. There is a phone call for me while I am ringing a customer. I answer, mid-scan, "Thanks for holding, this is Tim." A mysterious yet familiar voice speaks on the other end says, "Tim, we went to that place. Yours is here waiting." The voice, my friend from the shoeshine stand. That place, friends, is Harold's Chicken Shack, a bastion of fried chicken on Chicago's South Side for the last fifty years. My standing order: 1/4 chicken with mixed-mild sauce. The stuff dreams are made of.


I'll opt out of paraphrasing Wikipedia's article on Harold's and just say this is seriously the best mother-finger-licking good fried chicken anyone should ever hope to consume. A South Side institution and pillar in the Black community, Harold's is a favorite among many members of my shoe department. On a semi-regular basis, a member of the shoeshine duo will take orders and pick up 7-8 helpings of God's gift to taste buds, curse to arteries. The tangy aroma of mixed bbq sauce and beef tallow (read the article) is intoxicating and pervasive. When the man arrives with the chicken it is very difficult to get anyone to help you with shoes.

Now that I no longer work in the shoe department, the fact that my old colleagues in the shoe shine stand still think to include me in this most delicious and coveted of lunches is touching and remarkable. Hearing I had chicken waiting turned what had been a ho-hum morning of scratching and clawing for single shirt and tie gifts purchased by confused women for inevitably disappointed men bound to return the merchandise at a different store and never give me the opportunity to recoup the commission losses into just a damn fine day to be alive.

Thursday: Once or twice a year our store hosts a night of super rewards for store card-carrying customers. There are free appetizers, booze, and more reward points than anyone knows what to do with. It's a slam-dunk. You would think the liquid courage ought to always have a profound effect on loosening people's money purses. In my experience it doesn't. At least when clothes are involved. Who wants to worry about sizes, colors and accessories when it's completely free to pound back another white wine and salmon bite and shmooze with your friends in front of live music? Tonight? Apparently a lot of people.

I guess the word got out that 10 rewards points on the dollar instead of the normal 2 is a HUGE DEAL, as the turnout between the hours of 6 and 9 made it seem as if it was Barack and the Obamas themselves were the ones performing live covers. And people seemed to be buying too. A fellow salesperson happened to intercept an entire FAMILY, arms full of garments, that had received no help to that point. $1800 and about 30 gift boxes later, he was feeling pretty good about himself. In the same time span I netted about 2 or $300 after greeting dozens of customers. That's just the kind of night it was. It's the kind of day I had, in fact, and that is unfortunately the nature of our business. You can be professional and a great salesperson but without luck and fortunate positioning you could have nothing to show for it. It's frustrating and exciting that your sales can come fast and easy or not at all.

It is cold and windy coming home from work. Finally, winter decides to show up. It's good weather for brooding and stewing over the unfairness of the retail world. I knew I would pick myself up somehow once I got home and prepare to start fresh tomorrow morning. I was not prepared for how to accomplish this. Once again, Chicago institutions bailed me out (sounds cliche, I think): A letter from the department of revenue referenced a parking ticket issued to me back in July for not properly displaying my city sticker. Long story short I contested the $120 ticket with rightful cause and upon further review the city of Chicago ruled IN MY FAVOR and dropped the fine! The system works! Another damn fine day to be alive.

BREAKING RETAIL NEWS!

This little media gem missed the national sports headlines - Thanks, all-powerful Tigergate - but did not escape my retail-minded attention. Pants and a shirt for $100? He clearly was not robbing my store. I would have let him have the clothes. The real crime would have been him wearing the duds in public. And then White would've had to contend with the fashion police. WEEE-OOO-WEEE-OOO!

Is there another way?

This weekend I visited the Madison location of popular ladies retailer Anthropologie. I can't help but compare other stores to mine and this was no exception. What I noticed most distinctly was the staffing organization. Each employee had a role throughout the store and they seemed to rotate periodically.

Other retail workers, please feel free to chime in, but I'm guessing this is how most other stores are set up: Someone on the registers, someone manning the dressing rooms, someone restocking replenishment, a couple of floaters, etc. No one was really selling. This seemed strange to me because my store is the complete opposite. Everyone is selling first and performing other various tasks around the department second.

As a salesperson I individually take on each of the roles demonstrated at Anthro by several people. We call it "seamless selling:" the ability to take someone around the floor, put them in a dressing room, check them out, and set the foundation for a beautiful friendship. Welcome to relationship-building. And yet, I was fine being handed off to different members of their team. One person greeted us, another offered to start a dressing room and periodically checked on us to take additional items, another offered opinions and help at the dressing rooms, and still another checked us out. Did we forge any friendships? No. Did we get decent service? Yes. Would we have bought more if a salesperson was doing everything for us as well as suggesting additional items? Possibly. But not necessarily. Without such a salesperson, we also didn't feel any pressure. As an invested salesperson I always try to be as light and and non-confrontational with my customers as possible, but I'm sure just having me around makes at least some people feel a little pressure.


I will probably speak much more in the future about commission vs. non-commission as it relates to the selling and shopping experience. There are obviously pros and cons for each retail environment, and it will be interesting to tease those out a bit more. Comments, criticisms and insights are more than welcome.

Black Friday

Retailers jokingly refer to this day as “Black Friday” because the stupendous amount of shoppers that annually flood stores may mark the first day all year that a chain has actually been “in the black” financially. I always thought the reference was more biblical. Everyone who works retail seems to dread the day due to the masses of humanity. Like people dreaded the death of Christ. That explanation makes more sense to me.

At our store, Black Friday isn’t particularly ominous. We never have ‘door-busting’ sales. Other than our own marathon-sales, we’re not exactly in the business of the one-day blowout deals. And I’m ok with that. Still, I was expecting a good turnout as most of our colleagues on Michigan Avenue had super-attractive deals.

I was not disappointed. There were definitely throngs of people thronging through the store for a good part of the day. Most salespeople seemed unimpressed with the business, however. Particularly in my department there is a frustrated general sentiment because of recent staffing additions that have seen the sales floor oversaturated with salespeople. Today was no exception. And though it seemed most customers were merely passing through, passing time, just looking, every now and then a gem would emerge: An overlooked young man behind our counter bought a pair of Gucci sunglasses; a neglected older hipster bought two shirts and a Zegna tie in just a few minutes; and then there was Ethan.

I first noticed Ethan as he and a friend were holding/ fawning over our biggest D&G leather bag. It’s a good looking bag, for a grand. He was seemingly jokingly saying aloud, “I have to have this bag.” Many people gush similarly, so I just walked up and played along, “You sure do.” To my surprise Ethan let me take the bag and proceeded to walk around our designer bag department. He looked at a few Guccis and others, but kept coming back to the D&G. I am starting to seriously talk up the bag, as it seems he is actually serious. It should be noted, Ethan is sporting a LV duffel on his elbow, toting the 2K luxury sports bag as if it were a paper tote with a few groceries. The rest of Ethan’s dress is not particularly flashy but the more we talked the more it seemed he was a serious shopper and had no qualms with price tags. This type of customer comes around only once in a while and I was ready to run with him.

Ethan says he wants me to hold the bag aside while he goes to look at jeans. I acquiesce and offer to come find him and help with the jeans. Once you get a customer like this you don’t want to let them go. I should’ve taken my own advice. After I get a brand new bag and set it in the back stock room I come out and meet up with Ethan in the sportswear department. He has several casual jackets. We start looking at jeans and it becomes clear through my line of questioning that we really ought to be in the designer department. We end up looking at some high end leather jackets and sweaters. Ethan picks out about eight pieces to try on. After a ten minutes of him trying on and handing me the yeses and no’s we emerge from the dressing room. I have a take and a discard pile from him, and it doesn’t seem as if we’re missing anything. Ethan asked if I would put his choices with the bag. “Where are shoes?” he continued. My eyes are already WIDE and they were only getting bigger. This guy was going to drop several grand with me. I send him down to the shoe department, instructing that I’ll be over in just several minutes. Major mistake.

It couldn’t have been five minutes and I am back in the shoe department. Ethan is nowhere in sight. I wait for a few minutes. No Ethan. I walk back towards sportswear – it seemed like the guy got distracted easily. No sign of Ethan. I make several trips around the men’s floor over the next ten minutes. No Ethan. He had mentioned his husband was downstairs looking at handbags for his mother. The thought crossed my mind to go down there and see if he had joined his apparent sugar daddy (Ethan remarked while in the dressing room that hubby had just recently gotten him a ludicrously expensive Cartier watch). But that felt desperate. I had worried enough and paced the floor plenty without taking it to that next level. Sure, it would have been close to a 4K sale, but would’ve been tactless to seek out a customer in another department if he hadn’t even spent a dime with me yet. So I go back to Furnishings and wait.

And I wait. And I help other customers, sort of. Dink, dink, no dunk. The later it gets the more I remind myself Ethan had mentioned having a 10pm flight to NYC. The later it gets the more I remind myself that with a designer customer the margin of difference between buying and not is very slim. These people with money can be fickle and impatient. If you don’t have just the right thing for them at just the right time they’ll pass. That window for spending is but a sliver. Timing is everything. And I think it was a matter of timing with Ethan. Sure, he could have just been playing with me and trying on for fun, for attention. Or maybe he stole something after I put him in the dressing room. Maybe he figured the sports-designer wear wasn’t my specialty and after we took so many garments to try on I wouldn’t have kept track of what went in and came out. But I had a good feeling about the guy. I have been known to be gullible or too often giving the benefit of the doubt, but I felt positive intuition about this guy.

Because of the rush of the afternoon and Ethan’s hectic shopping style I didn’t think to stick on him. Most likely his husband called and insisted they hit the road. Surely they had some extravagant social plans prior to leaving. Or Ethan told his hubby he was buying things and hubby pulled the plug. Any way you slice it, this guy was ready to throw down some serious green and I let him out of my sight before he could do so. I’m going to site my major mistake as actually holding the bag all the way back in the stock room and then adding the jackets to the back as well. The round trip each time was at least five minutes. That is plenty of time to get bored/ reigned in by your sugar daddy. Had I brought the back to Sportswear in the first place, then we could’ve kept everything together and gone to shoes. If he got called and had to leave right away he could have at least made a game-time decision about which items to take, if not all of them. I might have looked like a walking closet organizer but I would’ve forced Ethan to close the sale.

What I continue to find frustrating, after my unfortunate timing, was Ethan’s decisiveness. He knew what he did and did not want, and quickly. He seemed good for the things he wanted. So many customers hem and haw over fit, price, color, need, etc. They agonize, they role-play, they puzzle. It is great to have a customer with resolve and a clear sense of yes and no. Of course, our loss prevention courses also list this trait as that of a shop-lifter. It is particularly prevalent when you get someone going into a dressing room. They will pick-out things without knowing the size, quickly, just checking prices. I honestly can’t remember if Ethan was checking prices. He was asking what sizes things were. He didn’t want to show me how things looked on him, but rather informed me he would put his likes on one side of the dressing room door opposite his dislikes. Still I say the guy seemed legit. If only I had slowed down to plan my moves and timing better.

Any time a customer leaves your sight they have an opportunity to bug out. In this business, this economy, there isn’t room to let probable paying customers escape. This sounds creepy and selfish, and it is a little bit. But it’s the truth and Ethan was a great example. I didn’t give myself the best opportunity to get a purchase out of him. Since we were splitting up I also could have asked for his full name, in case we stayed separated. Having the items so far away from the floor really handicapped the situation. They didn’t need to be so far away to be safe. If I’d had them close at hand, just at one of the cash wraps, I could’ve been back with Ethan much sooner. Or I could have insisted Ethan come back to my department while I grab his things. Then we go to shoes together and check-out there. Ultimately, I think the lesson here is to keep your customers close, your designer customers CLOSER. Maybe Ethan wouldn’t have gotten everything but I could’ve given myself a better opportunity to close the sale one way or another. Instead of just fizzling out like it did.