I’ve always been amazed at the lengths people will go to in order to scam us somehow. I’ve pretty much seen it all in terms of creativity, but last night I had one that is right up there with the classics. A little background–often times a customer will come up to buy something and Read More…
Author: RetailGuy
I have worked in retail for over 40 years. I've seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and the completely unbelievable.
Birds of A Feather–The Dreiling Saga Concludes
Some “breaking news” today, as Rick Dreiling has finally named his successor as CEO at Dollar General so he can start enjoying his retirement and the millions he collected from Longs when he left, among other places. And to no one’s surprise, it’s someone he knew from Longs, none Read More…
Starbucks employee fired after going off on customer in video posted online
Well, sometimes the customer really IS right and the manager is wrong. Doesn’t happen often, but there are some managers out there who probably shouldn’t be working in customer service. A lot of times situations like this come down to “he said, she said” and the employee usually gets the benefit of the doubt, Read More…
10 Wacky Grooming Products from the 1970s
10 Wacky Grooming Products from the 1970s This list is from Mental Floss. If you lived in the 70’s you will definitely remember all or most of these. I definitely remember selling them all, the Earth Born shampoo made an attractive (and fragrant) endcap but the Lemonup bottles didn’t stack too well. I Read More…
When Your Favorite Market Closes
We see a lot of stories about markets closing and often forget about the customers left behind when their local store closes. The author of this article lost her favorite store in Chicago and discusses what happened in the area but the end result is there’s an empty building where she used to shop. Read More…
Gwyneth Paltrow living off of food stamps?
The writer of this Business Insider article decided to take the Food Stamp Challenge to see if he could live on them for a week. Gwyneth Paltrow took the challenge as well. Which brings me to the fact that while in my area we don’t see a lot of EBT users (EBT being the food Read More…
Beware of These Pricing Tricks Retailers Use to Fool Your Brain
This is from Lifehacker, and most are basics that you already know if you’ve worked in retail for a while. Pricing something 99 cents instead of a dollar is like instinct by now. I’ve also known for a while that Amazon can track my habits and might show me a higher price for an item Read More…
10 reasons Walmart is the worst company in America
This is from a few months ago and the 10 reasons are fairly well known, but to me the interesting part is the training video which it says are shown to new hires as part of onboarding. At the company where I work, we were told last year that there will be union elections in every Read More…
France Mandates that Supermarkets Give Surplus Food to Charity
Kudos to the French here!! While you can argue about government intervention in business, etc., they are doing the right thing and trying to fix something that I’ve talked about before–the needless waste of food. With tons of homeless people everywhere, seeing dozens of loaves of bread thrown out each week (along with Read More…
Retail Apocalypse: Major US Chains Closing 6,000 Stores Nationwide
The author of this article which appeared in Truth & Action took a list of planned retail closings and ties it to fear of Jade Helm, riots and economic collapse. He uses a list which has “more than 6,000 store closings” planned. Classic example of “There are two sides to every story.” I found Read More…