Shopping — Men vs. Women

Are men treated differently than women when shopping? I know there have been studies done where beautiful women are mobbed by sales people and frumpy or overweight people are less apt to get good service. I’ve experienced that at times in my life — but never did it hit me like this past week. I felt as though I was a non-entity. Have any of you felt this way before?

I went into CompUSA this past week to buy a new computer, an external hard drive and some software. I had never been to this particular store, so I wasn’t sure where things were. I walked in and kind of wandered around. I picked up a store flyer and tried to find what I was looking for. I’m not sure if it was because I am a woman or what (I did shower that day) — but 3 different sales people walked right past me to men behind me and on different aisles to ask them if they needed any help. Did I look like I knew what I was doing? No — I had the flyer open, looking up and around to see the signs, kind of wandering up and down aisles.

So I have to ask myself — why — in a store where there were 5 sales people wandering around (at least 5 that I saw) — why would none of them offer assistance to me? Was I out of place. I mean, it’s a computer store, so maybe they thought I couldn’t make a purchase decision without a man around. Who knows — but it irked me. Did I just not exist?

I finally went up to one sales guy who was standing around and asked him if he could direct me to where the software would be — he rudely said, “No, I have to get this guy checked out” — pointing to a guy walking down the aisle. He could not even say — “Sure, the software is in the back corner,” or “Sure can you wait just a minute,” or “Let me call someone to help you.”

Needless to say — I ended up taking my business elsewhere and will never return there again. It’s too bad that sales people who represent a large company set the tone for the customer experience. I would hope that CompUSA (and other stores) will take note and try to encourage their sales people to be more friendly and helpful — (and not just to men.) Too bad — because they missed out on a really good sale as well as a good customer. To me, life is just too short to accept poor customer service — there are many other places where the service is great and they’ll keep me as a loyal customer.

I wonder what type of service men get when they go to a fabric store or a scrapbook store. — I think they are probably treated really well because mostly women work in those types of stores and in my experience most women enjoy being helpful.