Shopping or Selling?


Shopping is a favorite pastime in Singapore.  Malls are everywhere.  Nearly every MRT stop is attached to one or more shopping areas.  I tend to purchase mostly necessities, but I've had some entertaining moments investigating the Singapore shopping experience.

Sales personnel at stores take their jobs seriously.  They know their products and are keen to make a sale.  In stores that sell furniture or home appliances, sales people are responsible for certain brands and products and can't cross the line to sell someone else's brand.  And they follow you.  Closely.  They are at your service.  As soon as you eye something, they explain if it's on sale or the unique features of the product.  If they perceive you are not interested, they will point you towards another product they feel you will like.  Shopping exercises your ability to politely say no.  It also presents opportunities for entertainment when you say yes.  One time we had a demonstration of the most comfortable - and expensive - beds in the world from a sales rep trying to sell us a bed.  All three of us had a scientific assessment to determine our best type of bed, and we were able to lie on the bed for 5-10 minutes in the store.  Sweet!  If I planned on staying in Singapore for 10+ years, I would have seriously considered buying the bed.  Excellent interactive selling.  And truly a fantabulous bed!

The day I was surrounded by professionals in the financial district I realized almost every single woman had a skirt on... usually above the knee, black, and fitted.  It's a really lovely style, and I think I can pull it off.  On one of our shopping mall explorations, my daughter and I ventured into a store that seemed to have a few nice skirts.  After some persuasion from my much more fashion conscious 16 year old, I picked out three to try on.  Of course, the sales girl followed me closely and I probably would have had only one had she not selected two others.  Each time I came out of the dressing room to get my teen's thoughts on how it looked, the sales rep had another skirt for me to try!  I didn't want to seem ungrateful so I agreed to try.  I had about 12 skirts in the room at the end of the session - and I tried every one!  My daughter told me later that the girls were all giggling at me... she thought they were laughing because I was trying on every skirt they suggested.  Meanwhile, I was only trying them on because they were bringing them to me!  So much for exercising saying no politely.  I did find a skirt, however... and the girl that served me at the cash was highly complimentary of my eyes.  Overall, it was a successful excursion and we obviously entertained some people, which is never a bad thing.

On another shopping excursion on Arab Street (our favorite place in Singapore I think), my daughter and I were wandering the shops waiting for Terry to show for supper and ventured into a store that sold wall hangings from India.  The sales man was from the middle east somewhere and had the most gorgeous green eyes.  He was the perfect sales man.  He was charming.  And my daughter and I were lapping up his attention like a teen dragged on stage at a rock concert.  He told us the story of the wall hanging... how it was made from dresses of the queens from 100s of years ago.  When the queens no longer wore their dresses, they gave them to peasants.  Peasants wore them until they had holes in them.  Many years ago, sewers of these hangings visited rural India to collect these dresses and hand sewed the hangings with the dress collars.  Pretty good story, hey?  Not sure if it's true, but we dreamily listened and looked into his eyes.  He really thought we were going to purchase the hanging... it was beautiful to be honest, and if the story is true, it would be a pretty cool piece of history to have in our home.  And it would match my red couch and funky humpty perfectly.  But we said we'd return.  It was over my price range for now, and I was practicing saying no politely.  Regardless, he must have known we were swooning!

Thankfully, nobody follows you and tries to hard sell in a bookstore.  I have a hard enough time telling myself no when surrounded by books!  Yesterday I bought two books (one fiction and one non-fiction) and a self teaching mandarin book and CD.  Sales techniques for organizations selling mandarin courses are little less effective at targeting... or maybe there just isn't as big a demand as there is for consumer goods.

zai jian (no accents here but sounds like chai chian and means goodbye)