Do salespeople treat you differently depending on what you are wearing?

Oh, I had one embarrassing moment. I was sent to Sydney, Australia by my company to have a further training in Airlines system. That was my first trip abroad and I was so young. I did not know how to dress to impress people. I went to a store which displayed a colorful knitting little jacket (I thought I would buy it for my nephew). When I entered, the sales lady looked me over from head to toe. Being a naive girl, I did not recognize the signal and went to the little jacket display. When I was about to touch the jacket, the sales lady said: "It is very expensive." Still, being foolish I asked her how much was it. Again the lady said: "It is very very expensive.", without telling me how much was the price. Then I knew that I was being snubbed.

Totally agree with your saying that sales people indeed do treat us differently accordingly to our dressing. As I am 20 this year, I am usually dressed causally for school. At times after school, I do pop into shopping malls, into some boutique shops. Many a time when I am in this kind of dressing, it gives the sales persons the mentality that I am just a young girl taking a look at their products and don't have the means to buy it. How can they judge a book by its cover? I believe this is true in all cities over the world. Salesperson tend to serve the one which they FEEL have the most prospect of buying their products. I think this is caused by commission. With commission, sales personnel thinks that it is a waste of time if they serve someone who does not buy. Services should improve. However, I do understand that it is human nature to respond in this way. When I was working in a retail store, my boss taught me to only bother about those who look like they are ready to buy. For those who 'look see look see' don't bother about them as they are not worth your time!

i think that may be true but also the way you act. if you act confidently, they will treat you as such.

Seriously, I would say Yes! for majority of the time. Sometimes, they judged based on what you wear, what you carry, how you wear, how your body language is, who you are with etc. As I don't have much fashion sense, I normally wear my jeans and a t-shirt or polo-t etc. I still remembered clearly this incident because it happened 2 months ago. I went into the store and placed the dress in front of myself and viewed from the mirror. When I wanted to put back, there was this sale person who blocked me from doing it. Using a polite tone, I repeated "Excuse me" for umpteen times before I gave up and change my tone to a mono type. She finally turned around and gave me a very rude expression and stare. I am not sure is it because my action makes me look like I am one who can't afford to buy the stuff? Or was it because of the way I dressed that I deserved her reaction? But definitely, I can't accept the way I was treated and thus, I left immediately.

Yes, of course they treat you differently. Most sales places, the people work on commission, if they can sell you something they'll make more money. If you show up in a suit looking all nice and clean, they'll assume you have money, and are more likely to buy something.. I guess you could say your an easy target. I've noticed this too, when I'm dressed nice I have all the sales people all over me.. Usually I don't want their help..

Yes, I have definately had this happen to me! Most of the time when i shop at the mall and i am pretty dressed up or maybe wearing something from that particular store they run me down asking if they can help, i can barely get them off my back. Whenever i go in the store with jeans and sandals if i need help it's like all the sales people try to avoid me as if i can't afford to buy anything anyway. They don't even ask if i need help at all. I thought i was the only one who noticed this happens in stores.

It happens to me and my sis many a times. Usually we go shopping after our work. So we care less about our dresses. Sometime we are very relieved with nobody to insist on buying something but at times we have to ask to help us.

Well, It does happen to me most of the time. I usually go to departments stores and just wear casual clothes, sometime, I just wear a short. Most often, they do not bother me. That is really what I like. Well, perhaps that's the advantage of not wearing any fancy clothes... nobody would bother you.

I can't say that I have. I wear basically casual clothing, jeans and a t-shirt, and sometimes I'll wear business casual. The treatment toward me is always the same. Now and then I'll run across an employee who would rather I leave the store than deal with me, but it's often because of their own personal problem and nothing to do with me. However, I do remember this one time I stopped at SpeedWay to get gas for my car. All I had was three dollars in pennies, all nicely rolled and marked accordingly. There was a new employee there, and right away, with an irritated voice, she tells me, "I don't know if I'm allowed to accept all of these." Naturally, this surprised me because money is money, right? Her reaction to the penny rolls not only aggravated me and wasted my time, but it also aggravated the people behind me. She left and talked to her manager, then came back and accepted the penny rolls. I suppose she could consider herself lucky that I did not report her bad attitude to the manager or to corporate.

Yes it happened to me too. Once I was wearing a shirt and shorts and rubber slippers and I looked rugged and went inside this store. The sales lady did not entertain me kindly and was almost raising her tone as if she did not want me there. It did get into my nerve and I demanded to see a manager and she would not. So I went out of the store write a letter of complaint, and came back later well dressed. YOu should have seen the look on the sales lady's face as I demanded to see the manager. The manager apologized and she was fired.

Of course it's bother me. I often had that kind of experience. And I tend to leave a store that treats me with annoying looks when I came in with just shirt and shorts. I will cancel to buy things from that store, indeed.I mean, what's important is what's inside the wallet, right ??

That happens to me all the time but it doesn't really bother me but one time, my friend and I were shopping at this mall and one of the salesladies asked her if it was okay to give her a makeover. My friend was game and happily agreed to it...then eventually purchased the foundation the lady was selling. However, after she'd made her purchase, she jokingly asked me how come the saleslady didn't offer to give me a makeover. We both laughed about it then I realized I had really dark lipstick on which made a whole lot of difference between how we looked though we were both dressed really casually. Anyway, I guess the salespeople think that if you're dressed really nicely, you're really there to shop that's why they're more accommodating. I'm not saying it should be their thinking because whenever I really need to shop, I tend to dress down so that it would be easier to try on clothes.

Sadly the situation you mentioned happens. Some stores would have poor customer orientation that most salespeople would judge by your looks. They would approach or be friendly with people who look good or who dresses well. What they don't know is that those who dress well does not necessarily mean rich or are nice. It bothers me coz no matter the stature people should be treated equally.

yes very common..it's very annoying treating you differently base on what you wear.even some security guards in a mall look at you from head to toe if you didnt wear decent attire.

Yes! When browsing around the store, they'll follow me suspiciously if I am wearing tattered clothing - though it is in style - but if I am wearing something formal, they'll follow me around trying to sell something to me or picking out what I might like to try and buy. That is downright discrimination.

Hi, I do agree that some sales staff will treat the customer differently depend on our clothing. Especially for those branded shop...I really can see the differences. For me, I am not a branded person and I hardly step to those shop unless my friend want to go in there,then I will join. I just feel uncomfortable with such treatment from the staff and it is very unfair. People's clothing does not mean that person is poor and no money to buy those things, although we don't have the intention to buy,but we still can see. For me, I will feel comfortable to shop at the shop where the staff never follow my back. Some shops employed their staffs and they keep follow the customers ' back,worry the customers will steal their clothes. If I do enter these kind of shop, i faster walk out and go for other shops to shop around.

Yes, it happens to me all the time. Whenever I'm not in the best of my moods and go for shopping to uplift my mood, I find salesperson less interested in me...mainly because I don't care a lot about my dress then. However, when I particularly take good care of how I am looking or when I am with my boyfriend (I take special care of my attire then)...I get good attention from them. And that even makes sense. They have so many people coming to their store everyday and they can't give the same attention to all.

ya it happens, sales person follow us depending on the dress. they belive that the person in executive look or the person who looks like having more money in his hand as a good one to sale their item. i think it happens to everyone and everywhere.

Yes it happens to me a lot too. Now that I have nicer clothes that were given to me by a friend of my mom's, I am approached more when I go in the stores. If I go to the store in a tshirt and sweat pants, I am ignored. I too think it is funny because a retail store is supposed to offer the same kind of service to anyone but it is obvious that people who are better dressed are their target because they assume that means the person has more money. It should not be that way but it is. I have done some mystery shopping jobs and made sure to dress casually when I did them and the stores that acted that way did not get a good rating from me.

It ha happened to me many times. They first scan the person's clothes and then act accordingly. Many times if i buy something from one store and then carry on the items to the other one they would surely chase. No! it doesn't bother me much if we were in place of them maybe we would have also acted this way. They have to do their job cunningly and that's they are doing.......