The shopping horror stories playing out in Melbourne shops
Christmas is coming and retail staff around Melbourne are stocking up on Panadol as they prepare to deal with wave after wave of painful customers. Here are seven retail-store horrors you’re bound to encounter this festive season.
Melbourne
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STORYTELLER
The transaction seems to going just fine with this customer, right up to the final payment when they decide to embark on a 20-minute tale about the olden days.
This nostalgic, usually elderly customer remembers a time when department store shopping involved hats, gloves and getting a parking spot right outside on Bourke St.
Meanwhile the cashier queue spans from here to the toy section and includes multiple pregnant women in danger of experiencing labour before this old coot comes to the point of the story.
Only heckling from other customers finally convinced them to move on.
BOOK OF MORON
With a mind working as fast as a dial-up modem and a total disregard for retail staff’s time, this stumbling, mumbling idiot somehow managed to get dressed this morning without ending up in hospital.
Now they want to ask a dozen very similar questions about every product in the store.
“Will this mouse connect with my home computer?”
That depends what sort of computer you have.
“It’s a Westinghouse. Does this mouse work with that?”
No.
“Does this mousepad work with Apple or with Microsoft?”
“Can I use these wireless headphones with my LP player?”
You do your best to answer but eventually give up and instead try and convince them this is actually a dry cleaner and they’re in the wrong shop.
ESCALATOR
Unless every purchase goes exactly to plan without a single hiccup and with nobody sneezing, this snooty shopper is going straight to the manager.
The computer system says there’s no stock left for a particular item that they just found on the shelf?
Manager.
The tag is slightly bent in a manner that might suggest it was picked up by somebody else and placed back on the rack?
Manager.
They buzzed when they came through the security monitors because of a tag from another store?
Manager.
When they find out the youth serving them is actually the manager, they demand to see the manager’s manager.
GHOST OF SPRING RACING RETURNS
This customer was a regular before spring racing, sorting out separate outfits for Derby Day, the Cup and Oaks.
And lo, now their ghost re-enters the store having magically decided none of the outfits are suitable, the day after the racing season ends.
But years of practice at forensically removing and replacing tags and labels is betrayed by a stain on the cuff that could only be VRC car park goon, and sweat marks under the arms after the wearer had to walk 3km amid an Uber crisis.
Even so, this tough customer knows the relevant clauses of the Trade Practices Act off by heart and you’re facing an uphill battle.
A large number of these Judas apparitions visit in the week following Cup Day, making the whole store nothing more than a Salvos shop of second hand goods.
Better whack it all on sale.
HAGGLER
The act of having a pre-Christmas sale is akin to the act of turning over a large stone in the garden and becoming intimately acquainted with the things that crawl from beneath.
One of those vile insects is the haggler who, not content with the sale price, wants a real bargain on these cargo pants with a stretchy waist.
“Only 15 per cent? How about 20 per cent?”
No, 15 per cent.
“I saw 20 per cent at another shop.”
No, that’s a lie.
“What if I pay cash?”
Then good for you, that’s legal tender and it’s still 15 per cent.
“What if I,” seriously, “give you a good review online?”
That’d be great, thanks. Fifteen per cent.
“I thought you’d want to get rid of stock like this before Christmas.”
Not as much as I want to get rid of you.
Eventually the haggler agrees to the price but their card is declined and at very last they decide to leave and bother some other poor soul.
CLICK AND DEFECT
At first this shopper seems polite, reasonable and interested in purchasing multiple items of clothing.
But suspicion is aroused when the unmistakeable digitised clicking noise of an iPhone camera is heard from the change room.
Shortly after, this shrewd patron emerges and hands back all the items they were keen to purchase, including the ones that fitted perfectly, saying they’ll have a think about it.
By the time they’re in the car park, they’ve already found an online store selling the same item for less. The ruse is complete.
The click-and-defect shopper just uses brick and mortar retail as one big free sizing cupboard before they find a better deal on the internet.
The gall.
READ MORE:
HOW ST KILDA WENT FROM ELITE TO SKID ROW
DAY IN THE LIFE OF DODGY NBN INSTALLER
FULL DRAGON
From the outset it’s clear this customer has a few screws loose and a tendency the speak in short, aggressive bursts.
Then something happens like you ask for their postcode, bounce their card or take a little too long on the computer.
With a dozen megatons of pent-up fury, their face burns brighter than a thousand suns as they make a scene in the store.
Yelling, thumping the counter, demanding to know the service attendant’s full name so they can make a complaint, crying about how difficult the experience in this store has been and, course, demanding a huge discount.
A spectator sport for anyone else on the floor, the dragon’s tirade eventually subsided and the leave to repeat the process at a competitor store.
Mitchell Toy is a Melbourne writer and artist.