Tuesday, July 20, 2010

I ♥ Queues and The Customer is King. NOT.

Another for the Cultural Difference file.

Yesterday was a busy shopping day for my man and me.  You loyal readers have already learned that the weeks here run Monday-Sunday; therefore, the stores' sales of the week begin on Mondays.  This is except for those weeks where stores are allowed to be open on Sundays; usually the first Sunday of the month (and even then, some stores, like Super Brugsen, have very limited special offers on Sundays, but start the sale prices of everything else in their ads on Mondays).  This is set to change in 2012, though.


Another huge difference between US and DK grocery stores is that many of the grocery stores here have an entire section that is devoted to "special products on offer" that the store does not carry permanently.  Many of the awesome deals can be had in these bins; therefore, that is also why it is important to check out alllllll the stores' fliers and make a detailed shopping plan of attack of what to buy where.

As you probably have already guessed, the lack of having permanent shelving for these products means that once the product is sold out for the week, it's sold out.  Ain't no more bein' delivered later on in the week.  As a result, it is very important to shop for the special deals on Monday.

But not too early on Monday mornings, because the shipments are still being unpacked and shelved several hours after the store's opening.  This has always confounded me, because my retail experience hearkens back to the days where there was a specific crew that worked during the pre-opening hours. This crew ensured that all of the products were shelved and ticketed correctly.  Here, you might shop too early for the particular product you were looking for, because it might not yet have been put on the shelf. The worst part of being a shopper early on Monday mornings is that the workers actually act as if you are in their way!  Oh, puh-lease! Bite me, I'm patronizing your store!

Once I asked my marketing professor about this phenomenon.  Surely he was surprised at anyone noticing such a thing, but responded that here, the most important thing has to do with workers' working hours/conditions, and NOT the customer! 

I worked for a few years at a department store's service desk.  Oh boy, was there ever hell to pay if we were sold out of a product early on in the week.  Usually we would always get another shipment of said product later on in the week.  If not, we issued rainchecks to the consumer, who could buy the product later at the sale price. This said, we reserved no sympathy for the poor saps who still expected to find the huge package of Extra Quilted Pamper Yourself TP at a price of college-bachelor-TP late Saturday evening, and threw a bitch fit when they discovered it was sold out.

Another cultural difference I have noted about Shopping in DK is that people LOVE to stand in lines, waiting, waiting, waiting....  More often than not, the nimrods who designed the check-out stands made it so that a huge pillar or some other obstructing object blocks the cashier's view to see how many people are standing in line.  Even if the cashier could see how long the line was growing, I am still not certain that a call for more help would be made.

So, people queue up, and up, and up.  In 9.5 of 10 times, I have experienced that no one will ask the cashier to please have someone else open up another register.  When it does happen, the person asking is usually 1. a 16-25 year old Danish male; 2. a Danish woman who is very tall and/or has some other kind of commanding presence; 3. a foreigner.  Numbers 1 and 3 always act hurried and impatient. Otherwise, it seems as if people are completely and blissfully happy to spend large amounts of their time waiting in line.

This observation is even more reinforced when the relief cashier does open another line, but few people who have been in line the longest move over to it.  ?!?!?  They continue standing where they are, continuing to wait.  Of course the customer who asked for another open register moves over to it, but after that, it is not at all a free-for-all rush to a shorter wait time.  This confounds me even more than the workers acting like you are in their way.

Well yesterday I finally put myself into the #3 category. At least 15 people were in line in front of me, so I went up to the cashier and said, "Kan du lige åbne en kasse mere?"  (Can do Lee Oh-ba-nah AIN ~as in pain~ Cass-ah meer?)  Fortunately, she ran the bell, and a relief cashier came.  Despite all of those people in front of me, I was second in line at the other one (and I didn't even make a mad dash over!). 

What the deal is with being OK with waiting in lines for so long is beyond me.  I have better things to get to, and will walk fast to get there.

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