Store managers must undergo special training to make shopping as inconvenient to their customers as possible. Using a range of covert tactics, they employ maddening means to make all but the most stubborn of customers retreat with a hasty exit.
A weapon at their disposal is the ‘return policy’ or lack of. You purchase a mobile phone from an outlet, and if for any reason it gives up on you within the warranty period, you are usually met with a suspicious stare when you take it back to the place of purchase.
And after being accused of being the perpetrator of the fault, you are then bluntly told to take it to the dealer service center yourself, as this store does nothing but sell the units. Who the dealer is and where the service center is located, is something you’ll have to work out and find on your own.
If you are a woman and happen to purchase a garment or otherwise, chances are you are playing Russian roulette in that it will fit you perfectly. You cannot try it on at the time of purchase and by the time you get home and find out it is a size or two too big, you are faced with the inconvenience of having to plan a ride to get you back to the store.
And once you are back at the store, the clerk once too eager to sell you the item, this time rewards you with a blank stare and a muted refusal to return your money.
You have a choice though. Pick anything else of similar value or take the garment you initially purchased back with you. And if you succumb and choose something else to cut your losses, you are once again playing with the dice.
Store hours are a bit of a gamble too. In Heraa Mall they open around 11:00 a.m., only to close 75 minutes later. And then it’s anybody’s guess whether they’ll be opening again. You may have to wait till 5:00 p.m. to find out. But then, they’ll close again an hour later.
Another nightmarish tactic is turning off the lights in the store well before prayer times.
At a department store on Tahlia, they even go as far as immobilizing the escalators, which grind to a halt along with the dimming of the lights. So eager are the store clerks to rid themselves of paying customers, it bothers them not one bit with the mayhem they create as families, spread over two or three floors, panic and try to navigate in the dark.
Clerks eager to earn themselves a long break are massively abusing prayer time closure. At the site of the two Holy Mosques, shops close barely minutes before the call to prayer. But here in Jeddah, shopkeepers have a mind of their own.
Didn’t someone say this country is applying for membership to the WTO? Perhaps the news hasn’t spread far enough.
