My Retail Experience

Working in retail is one of the most common jobs a teenager can get. I came a little late to the game, only working in retail after my first semester in college. It didn’t really start out conventionally, one of my friends worked at a retail store called Clark’s (I’m sure you’ve heard of it) and he asked me if I would like a job. Like most college students, I’m broke, and it’s something to do during the break. I never worked in a retail environment before, so I was curious to see how it would turn out. Clark’s entire methodology of selling is quite different from most conventional retail jobs. They emphasized building a relationship with the customer, something that I could be very good at. After I learned all the names of the shoes and done all of my homework, they immediately made me start selling. One mistake that I quickly realized was that I wasn’t selling to the customer the right way. My instincts told me that I needed to inform the customer of the latest sale or tell them what they could be missing out on. My manager caught on to what I was doing, told me that I should try a different method. What she suggested completely changed how I would sell the customers. Trying to sell to the customer, she suggested that I first build a relationship with the them. I was a bit confused, we were working in a retail store that was trying to sell as much as possible. I decided I had nothing really to lose, so the next customer that walked in instead of telling them about our latest sale, I need to ask how their day was going. It sparked up a conversation with the customer, and naturally, it led to shoes. I found out a little bit about what the customer was trying to buy, it was an older lady who needed shoes for gardening. Without even trying to sell to her, I was able to figure out what her needs were, and to better recommend to shoes she might like. To my surprise, she decided to buy the shoes! After she bought the shoes, she asked what I was doing with my life, and I explained that I was pursuing an entrepreneurship degree at Grove City College. She was extremely interested in the conversation continued for about 10 more minutes.

While it may not seem like much, I decided to sell like this with the rest of the customers for the day, and realized that almost every time I had a conversation like this, they would buy shoes. I realized it wasn’t as much about the product I was trying to sell, but about building a solid relationship with the customer. A process like this takes much longer than regular selling, but it is so much more rewarding, since you actually get to figure out some of the customer’s problems.