I worked in a destination outdoors chain. My departments I ran at different points were firearms and marine electronics. Both were high-dollar purchases that usually involve 1:1 interactions with workers.
When someone doesn’t buy a $4000 sonar unit because nobody was on the floor in that department it hurts.
The higgher-up managers came out of from other departments like clothing or gifts. They were used to departments where the only job of the staff was to re-stick stuff and point out bathroom locations. You don’t need an expert salesman to help you pick a shirt or novelty mug.
They didn’t understand that people coming to the store to buy sonar or a trolling motor don’t know what they need to know to pick a unit. Or that someone isn’t going to wait an hour in line for a salesman to talk to them about buying a gun that they legally cannot buy without going through the salesman, when they could go to 5 different stores in the same town and get service immediately.
To be fair, many of those managers didn’t last long. I personally got HR to fire the AGM when one of my salesman let me know that the AGM forced one of my people to sell a gun to someone after another employee had refused to sell it to them because they thought it was a straw purchase.
I worked in a destination outdoors chain. My departments I ran at different points were firearms and marine electronics. Both were high-dollar purchases that usually involve 1:1 interactions with workers.
When someone doesn’t buy a $4000 sonar unit because nobody was on the floor in that department it hurts.
Ah! Never worked high-stakes retail like that. I get it now.
Holy shit your bosses must have been absolutely fucking brain dead pieces of shit. Why not just tell them they were mistaken and lie?
The higgher-up managers came out of from other departments like clothing or gifts. They were used to departments where the only job of the staff was to re-stick stuff and point out bathroom locations. You don’t need an expert salesman to help you pick a shirt or novelty mug.
They didn’t understand that people coming to the store to buy sonar or a trolling motor don’t know what they need to know to pick a unit. Or that someone isn’t going to wait an hour in line for a salesman to talk to them about buying a gun that they legally cannot buy without going through the salesman, when they could go to 5 different stores in the same town and get service immediately.
To be fair, many of those managers didn’t last long. I personally got HR to fire the AGM when one of my salesman let me know that the AGM forced one of my people to sell a gun to someone after another employee had refused to sell it to them because they thought it was a straw purchase.