The Tales of Retail

for a product to sell, get the best sales person 🙂

Hello,

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of our retail business, i have listed below, not lessons and tips, but the most memorable stories — both good and bad — we have ever encountered. Enjoy reading 🙂

1. A week after we opened a branch in the farthest part of the island, we met a teacher from a private college there. she asked for our permission to let her class visit our store for a little “field trip”. we thought it was only one class, but lo and behold, there were batches! 🙂 they went around the store, looking at our displays, having a little picture moment, here and there. they said they loved the modern look of the store and the latest in audio video 🙂 that was the first time we held an educational field trip. 🙂 and it was fun 🙂

2. When my siblings and i were still in school, we didn’t have any service truck back then. if my father sold a refrigerator, he would call “mang kikoy”, the “cuchero” and would hire him to deliver the unit to our customer. Cuchero is a calesa driver. A calesa is a two wheeled carriage pulled by a horse. How sosyal, imagine a calesa parked outside your house. 🙂 It would seem like a clip from an 18th century movie. Yesssss.

3. A couple went to our store. Something about them told us they were from the island but were currently settling at a different country, somewhere in Europe. How did we know? They were talking in a foreign language when they entered the store. 🙂 My team followed them around, gave the best sales talk, smiled, followed again, sales talk. The routine. But the couple werent smiling, they were just looking around. Then they started opening the refrigerators, and then like someone who’s carefully studying if the fish were fresh, began to knock the doors of our displays, not that softly though! “Hindi ganito ang mga ref sa I__y! Hindi ito bakal!” (These are not like the ones from ____! These arent made of steel!) They went on saying things like that about our products the entire time they were there.

We didn’t like it. But we’re made of steel too, and people who look down on our products are a mere laughingstock as soon as they exit our store 🙂

To cut the story short, they purchased that fridge. Labo.

4. During one of our grand openings, as a gift to a purchasing customer, we gave her a free shirt. She exclaimed, “Wow! Pang Christmas Party ko na ‘to!” (Wow, I’ll wear this to our Christmas Party!)

While in another grand opening, we gave a customer a free shirt. The lady said, “Wag na lang.” (No thanks). Tossed the shirt back to our cashier.

There are plenty of instances with regard the free shirt!

Another story is when a customer bought a TV set. It was a very lean month, a dead month we call it. As a gift, we gave the lady a shirt. And then suddenly she began to recall the units she bought at our store. “Sa dinadami-dami ng binili ko dito, tshirt lang ang give-away ko???” (Ive purchased a lot from this store and all i got was a free shirt??)

Yes customers can sometimes be really choosy with the FREE gifts they bring home.

One more shirt story! We gave the customer, yes, a free shirt as a gift. She laid it down on the table and said, “Pano ko ‘to susuot? May logo ng tindahan nyo??” (How can i wear this when it bears your company logo?)

Hihi. I feel a smile on my face while writing these funny shirt stories. 🙂

5. Nothing beats the feeling of meeting a customer who would say, “Lahat ng appliances ko, dito ko binili. Buhay pa lahat ngayon! Wala pa kayo pwesto dito. Andun pa kayo sa lumang building ng Metrobank” (I purchased all of my home appliances here. And they’re all still working! You don’t have an outlet here yet then, you were still at the old building of Metrobank).

There, number 5 is a sure eye opener — let’s keep both feet on the ground, remember the beginning. That’s a note to myself by the way.

I, well, most of the time, get easily frustrated with the daily ops at work. Who am I to complain? The business is 40 years old, it’s withstood, possibly, the worst. Again, who am I to complain and act like a diva?

Like the old Pinoy saying, “Madami ka pang kakaining bigas!”  (You still ha ve a lot to learn; you still have  a long way to go). 

Anyway 🙂 Those were my top 5 Tales of Retail. I promise to come up with more.

Happy 40th Birthday dear store. I love you. Thank you for being a huge part of my life – and my family’s too.

 

The Picture above! That’s Tristan, Tel and me holding the camera. It was taken last summer of 2011 by my husband during one of our stopovers in Quezon – the land of longganiza (chorizo).