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.
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.
Ah! Never worked high-stakes retail like that. I get it now.