What's your juiciest retail story? - Topic of the day 9/12/23
Whether it be in person or online, what's a juicy story you remember from your experience with a particular retailer? Was it a good or bad? Did they go above and beyond to help you with your situation? Was it so terrible that you've sworn them off forever? Give kudos to your favorite stores, or spill the tea on ones we should avoid!
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Talked to one of the owners of Peggs & Sons in Blighty. Must have been in 2014. They straight up told me they were too poor for Common Projects so instead stocked Garment Projects instead.
Speaking of a relevant complaint thread https://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/comments/16g66vn/garment_project_white_sneaker/
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And now they stock Visvim. Lol.
Rise and grind. Christ that reminds me, is there a Visvim inflation index? There should be.
I went to a friend once to the flagship macys in my city to check out some Nike sneakers. We asked one of the employees where the shoe section was and she asked us if we were looking for sport shoes or normal shoes. We said normal shoes and she pointed us to another floor where we realized her definition of normal shoes was exclusively dress shoes. The sneakers were like 2 floors down past the kids section.
i got let go from american eagle after a 3 hour shift. they gave me no training and put me in charge of the entire men's section. then they scheduled me on my first day of university and let me go when I said I couldn't work that day 
In 2015 I went to J Crew to try some stuff on. This sales lady told me to try on some 484 Jeans, so I put them on, then she said "ok let's see em" and spun her finger, and as I turned around she went "mmmhm"
Ok, fellow kids. I have a story from 1998. I flew to DC for my cousin's wedding, and American Airlines sent my luggage to Brazil. I went to Nordstrom and told them I needed appropriate attire for a rehearsal dinner and wedding. I needed everything, from underwear to shoes to necktie, and I needed it today. They delivered. Helped me pick out suitable clothes, and did same day alternations for the pants and blazer. I've had a soft spot for Nordstrom ever since. And American Airlines, eventually, paid for everything.
Moreso a tale of deviant behavior than retailers being awful but when I was in late hs/early college I loooved urban outfitters but it was so expensive I'd only get one or two things a year and mix that in with thrifted stuff
Anyway, one year my family got me a $100 urban gift card for xmas so I put together a pretty hefty order incl some of my first real skinny skinny jeans. The order didn't arrive on time but was marked delivered anyway so I assumed it was swiped and contacted urban customer support for help. The lady on the other end was awesome and instead of refunding me just sent a second order for all of the same stuff.
Well the order arrived the next day and a duplicate pack about a week later, so I sell off all the dupes to my friends and make my $100 back. Pretty sure I spent it all on weed but either way shout out urban customer support.
I've been working retail since I was 16 so I have a ton of stories (celebrity customers, celebrity coworkers, getting held up, people buying engagement rings and hitting on people in front of their fiance, etc..) but probably one of the most uncomfortable moments of my entire life was when a guy came into the jewelry store I worked at and told us he and his girlfriend were visiting from Canada and that this was her favorite store. He had already bought a custom engagement ring and we had it ready for him, we prepped everything while his gf was getting coffee across the street and when she came back he proposed. She said no.
I tried to make the skinnies work for a couple weeks but they were so cheap and eventually ripped leaving my whole ass out one day in class. Like 6+ inch rip along the inner pocket seam I had to go home immediately and everything lmao. I tried to salvage them using a hand sewing kit and ashamedly wore them a few more times with the same color boxers underneath hoping folks wouldn't notice but eventually gave up. Anyway that summer I snuck them into a big pile of clothes I took to buffalo exchange and they ended up buying them ig because the rip wasn't that noticeable. Pretty sure I spent that money on weed too but either way shout out untrained buffalo buyers.
Alright I've got three or four juicy stories I can think of, but the most relevant for fashion are my two about TheRealReal:
1. When they lost my shit and then tried to make it my problem (half successfully) - https://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/comments/stxnm9/update_i_finally_got_my_money_the_realreal_has/
2. When there were misconfigured stacking promotions and EHF had a jolly lil competition to see who could get the lowest price on their order. It got a whole slew of people banned from TRR (but only from purchasing, not from consigning). This is the winning order:
And here's the dress, in the flesh:
Damn never knew the order actually shipped
yeah they shipped all three of her orders
just banned her after, blocked every account even remotely associated with her contact/payment info
Damn, worth it for the story I hope
Presumably
This is why TRR is going under lol
TRR tried to make me pay for a return on a jacket that I didn’t order and there was no return slip. The jacket was 10% the cost of what I actually ordered.
The jacket I actually ordered never came. They gave me $25 and didn’t ship my next order just canceled a week later. $25 gone.
I hope you charged back on the jacket you ordered (if they didn't separately refund you)
If they send you the wrong merch and don't send you what they owe you, that's your merch and your money, if you're in the US
Relatedly, the actual juciest retail story I have is about Easton Cycling. A few Black Fridays ago I ordered a couple grand in carbon parts for my road bike over two orders, one for finishing kit and one for wheels. I realize after checking out for the wheels that I forgot to order rim tape. I'm like oh shit, I'll just order it and email them asking to combine shipping.
So I paid the $15 flat rate shipping + $10, emailed asking if they could combine the shipping and refund me, like "hey just throw this in the box with the wheels", and they send me some corporate type of "no". I'm kinda blown away that they could not do this, and send an incredulous email back like "wait really? I just ordered thousands of bucks worth of stuff and you're telling me you can't bundle ship an item that hasn't even processed at the warehouse that I ordered ten minutes ago?" and they said something to the effect of "we can't change any orders once they are ordered".
A couple days later, the finishing kit arrives, and then wheels arrive... with the rim tape in the fucking wheel box, which they said they could not do, and then... I check the tracking for each order, and it says that everything but the wheels are delivered, with an expected delivery of the next day. The next day, I see UPS unload another box of wheels from the truck. I immediately open a return on them and run to the UPS store to pay for my own label to ship them back.
I get a panicked call from someone in executive CS who says something to the effect of "I know what you did", and I largely play stupid without lying.
Those motherfuckers had to refund me shipping and the cost of the wheels and I still got a pair for basically free (the $10 cost of rim tape).
They should not have been such dickheads about it all, because they ended up making an actual unforced error, and I was able to keep a set of pricy fucking bike wheels absolutely 100% legally free and they couldn't do jack shit about it.
Im sure i have juicier but one that always stands out to me was when i was working at indochino. Dude was trying to get a suit for his buddys wedding. I was helping him through the process it was fine whatever. He takes a picture of a couple bolts of cloth and sends it to the friend to get his input. In a couple minutes the friend replies by zooming in on my foot that was in the corner of the picture and saying “wtf are those” regarding my favorite dries boots. Dude just hides his phone from me and trys to brush it off and i just pretended i didnt see but inside i was crushed
no need to care about what random dude on messages thinks 
I dont haha but it felt not good!
My worst retail interaction story is at End Clothing when I was followed across the second floor by 2 SAs and one in the 1st floor and at least 3 different people asked me if I needed any help. As a visibly brown man with a beard, I should be used to these things, but surprisingly it hadn't happened that much to me, but End was definitely the worst of it. I've sworn never to buy anything from them.
that's messed up
this happened to me at 017 shop in vancouver
Sorry brother
I'm sorry as well. not a great feeling. it was on my birthday too!
I'm gonna boycott end as well
Aw man, that sucks. Let’s boycott both end and 017
🫡
I used to manage retail and there was a lot of wild stuff that happened but one thing sticks out as particularly hilarious. I had this employee once that was incredibly annoying (my boss hired her while I was on vacation), and like two weeks in she goes “what celebrity do I look like” to everyone when we were working a shift till late. All of us were like “idk who cares,” and she continues with “it’s Dax Shepard, he’s my cousin.” So then everyone’s like “ah yeah okay, I can see it.” (She really did look like Dax) but she’s not done and she’s all “no really, don’t y’all believe me?” Everyone’s just like “yeah we believe you.” Apparently, we weren’t giving her the proper response so she goes “no I’ll prove it.”
She whips out her phone, must’ve been like 10pm and puts it on speakerphone and we hear a groggy Dax go “what do you want?” She’s like “my coworkers don’t believe you’re my cousin! Tell them you’re my cousin.” He goes “you really gotta stop doing this.” And in the background I hear what is clearly Kristen Bell’s voice go “who is that?” And he goes “it’s Becky.” We hear her let out a very loud “Ughhhh she’s so annoying!” And my employee is all “please Dax, tell them you’re my cousin.” He sighs and says “Hi, I’m Dax Shepard and I’m Becky’s cousin,” then hangs up. I felt very affirmed that Kristen Bell also found this employee to be the most annoying person.
Edited name, I don’t wanna doxx someone
Edit: a vintage store is retail right?
A prominent NYC vintage seller badmouthed me for “messing up” his store and not buying anything. This wasn’t a place that was appointment only as I made sure to go on his open day.
I had friends with me who bought with him before and we did not mess up his store. I even put a few ties aside I was debating on and when I returned he put them back, which made me not buy them.
When I left he texted me “I guess I’d didn’t have anything you wanted”. And then I found out how was ranting about me in his close friends stories. So I’m never going back there and I stopped recommending him unless you want to buy something each time you visit.
This wasn’t my first time there (and we used to mutuals). so maybe it’s my fault for assuming a friendly vibe. In LA most vintage store sellers I know lvoe to shoot the shit and talk clothes even if I don’t buy anything. But honestly the whole thing kidna affected me so now I don’t like visiting stores unless I’m buying something or know I’m welcome there to say hi without obligations.
It’s why almost all my shopping has been thrift stores or fleas lately where there is no obligation.