From The Straits Times    |

4:30PM: Yours truly stands in the middle of the Warehouse ION outlet. Nervous. Slightly perplexed. Wearing a cute wrap dress from their latest collection as my temporary uniform.

I’m trying to recall everything “shop in charge” – equivalent to store manager – Jenneth Rearte has just told me in my “new employee” briefing: sizes, reservations, washing details, new arrivals, collection names, gift cards, promotions, membership, other stores, opening hours – and most important for all those in need – “where are the toilets on this floor please?” And I can think of nothing else but shopping, shopping, shopping! Focus, woman!

I notice my TRAINEE tag is askew. How reflective of the moment.


Anita gets instructions from Warehouse ‘shop in charge’ Jenneth Rearte.

My first job ever? Burger King, baby! I radically chose the 5am shift, thinking it would leave me the rest of the afternoon free. It did. But I smelt like eggs and hamburgers all day long. Which is not a good thing when you’re 16 and attempting the dating thing.

My first post college job was as a public relations assistant in a health club that would emanate a sewage smell every day at 5pm. How’s that for service with a smell?

After my intense session with Jenneth I realise that the actual job is taught by rote: learn what others are doing and copy the same to get the basics right. Coupled with a three day in house training course, this is all the official training a sales associate generally gets before hitting the floor for a more organic experience.

I remember Jenneth very well. She has served me countless times in this very store before and left a great impression each time. She is a patient teacher – so patient I am embarrassed – and a great store manager.

5PM: My real experience starts. I do what comes naturally – talking and interacting with people. I am amazed at how polite people are. This is the infamous rude Singaporean customer?

Most of the ladies in the store come in on their own, and appear to be de-stressing after a long workday. I know that feeling. You walk into your favourite store (or supermarket) and trudge around aimlessly just unloading the day.


Anita on the shop floor for Warehouse and helping out a customer.

People just want a polite greeting and then to be left alone at this point. Most retail stores don’t realise this. They greet and chase. Or, greet and ignore. It’s all about signs and knowing how to read them. Don’t abandon the shopper entirely. Keep a keen eye out for the moment a customer moves from de-stress, to interest. Because you’re the first person they will look for.

The ION Warehouse sales associates have sharp instincts. The good sales associates don’t trail customers around the store, yet are always at hand if you need something. The only bit that bothers me, both as a shopper and a trainee, is that everyone is too quick to relieve clothes that a customer has chosen, to hang them on the rack in the changing area. This happens everywhere now.

Personally, I find it intrusive if I have just one or two pieces. I reckon, wait until the customer has three or four pieces before you attempt to help relieve her or him. And don’t insist if she or he prefers to carry the items around.

The store also tends to attract lots of tourists, and then there are the ladies who lunch, and like to shop in groups. As a strictly solo shopper myself, this is a feat of friendship I will never understand. Do you really want three pals telling you your bum looks fat in that? You know if your bum looks fat in that.

Amidst the customers, Warehouse HQ likes to send out a mystery shopper now and again, to keep everyone on their toes. I like that idea a lot. Just not today please!

5:30PM: A group of ladies start staring and talking. Oops. Recognised. Or I have way too much cleavage showing.

I breezily keep busy around the store, which is a hive of activity right now, picking out sizes, and asking customers if they need help. When the group seems ready I walk up to them and ask to serve them. I score a couple of sales, woo-hoo! No one dares to ask what I am doing. Phew.

There are loads of customers milling about, and lots of requests for sizes. Jenneth shows me how to use the computer to check stock. Why do retail systems needs to be so complicated? I’m handy with tech, but seriously, five or six steps to access information you need quickly, while the customer stands around? It seems to be the same everywhere. Why isn’t stock just easier to check and access?

6PM: Oops. Recognised again. Fashion stylist Johnny Khoo breezes in and says hi as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. I suppose it is, except for my huge TRAINEE tag, ha ha ha!

My biggest observation so far is that people appear to behave far less entitled and demanding in a retail store, than they would in a restaurant. I ask the other sales associates if this is true. All of them reply that Singaporean customers are at their worst when they want to exchange items.

As if the Gods were trying to prove this point, a lady walks in with a well-used pair of sandals she once bought at Warehouse. And I mean, well used. The accessory on the t-strap has come loose, she has come to complain, and get it replaced.

Can anyone else smell freebie seeker? I can understand coming back in a day or two, even a week. With the tag and receipt. But a pair of sandals that look like they were bought months ago, worn to Bali and back? Jenneth stands polite and firm. I do a victory dance inside my head.

6:30PM: A sudden lull. It’s dinnertime. The store is almost empty, but the girls keep going. Some take a dinner break now, which makes complete sense. Others remain in store and stock up the shelves, or help the merchandisers who are there to dress up the store for the following day’s customer event.

Everyone is arranging and rearranging clothes and accessories. A-ha! That’s how they make you part with your moolah! Not that it’s a surprise, the idea of re-merchandising, but isn’t retail psychology an interesting, if not scary thing?

I fold a new range of sweaters three times to get it right. I observe as another sales associate restocks sizes, and prices new evening clutches to be put out on the shelves. We laugh at the fact: one lipstick, a credit card, your keys and maybe, an iPhone at a squeeze would fit.


Anita gets in some practice for folding her own laundry during her stint at Warehouse.

I talk to the other girls about their ambitions. One young trainee is 20, with a one-year-old child. Her husband was involved in a traffic accident so she’s had to go to work. I wonder what her world is like, she seems sad. I decide to tell her she needs to know she can do anything as a woman and mother.

I find out from Jenneth that she has been with Warehouse for five years. She is such an awesome lady, and her staff are cool chicks. Good to work alongside, and with a great sense of humour. Humour is so key in fashion retail especially. 

You also need to be part business woman and meet your store targets intelligently, part psychologist to gently dissuade someone from buying something they may look horrendous in, and consistently self-motivated by work that can get mundane at a particular point.

There’s room for ambition at Warehouse. From an entry-level trainee to Senior Store Manager, there are five levels you can aspire to. But I wonder if that makes it easier or harder? I do like hearing that store sales targets are linked to an overall shared commission if met, but I especially like that no one behaves as if that’s their only goal. 

7PM: DONE!  An eye-opening experience. There are a couple of huge women’s fashion chains and many exclusive boutiques whose entire customer service ethos needs a major spring-cleaning, and they could really learn from what I see as the Warehouse model: approachable not arrogant, knowledgeable but not a know it all, energetic but not impatient, available but never in your face. I will be back.

Journalist and host Anita Kapoor was the host of customer reality television series Can You Serve Season 2.

 

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