My Dress Sales Experience

This past week over spring break, I went to the mall to find dresses for me to wear to the upcoming formals I am attending. While at the mall, I was able to see some of the sales concepts which we have discussed in class hold true in my own life.

The first of these is the importance of building relationships prior to attempting to make a sale. While at the mall, I looked for dresses at two different stores. At the first one, the girls worked did not engage with me while I was shopping and did not go out of their way to make the experience enjoyable. However, at the second store, girls greeted me as soon as I entered and asked if I needed help looking for anything specific. In addition, they helped get a dress for me from a tall rack and started me a fitting room so that I did not have to carry the dresses. This extra level of care made me feel more connected to the girls selling the clothing and want to pick a dress from their store.

Another concept I recognized was the fact that buyers like to buy, but do not like to be sold to. As soon as one of the workers at the first store started to try to “over-sell” me on the clothes there, I began to shut myself off to the sales pitch and wanted to find a new store. When I was at the second store, the girls did a much better job at balancing trying to make a sale with making sure their product was actually the one I needed. This made me more inclined to purchase my dresses from them and continue to be a customer of theirs. It has been super interesting to see how all of the concepts discussed in this course have appeared in my day-to-day life.