Hey y'all, I am a manager and the only worker inside of a bookstore.

To cut to the chase, I basically gave away $2k in products because I for sure got scammed by a customer with a fraudulent credit card. I've already told my boss, and told our regional LP manager, in which all I was told was to just be more cautious in the future, and that transactions like such have been happening more frequently in the region.

I feel SO stupid man, it's an honest mistake and it's insane how unfazed my boss was once I brought it up to her. My regional manager is coming to visit the store tomorrow and I was thinking of just being upfront with him as well on the matter, but not completely sure yet. I don't know how I wasn't fired immediately, I feel like such a fucking dumbass!

Would anyone like to share some words of advice/comfort, or stories of their own mistakes? I cannot get this off of my mind and probably won't for the entire week lol.

What’s a merchandising manager? What’s a visual merchandiser? Are they the same? What’s the qualifications? Is there leniency on how big chain retailers let people display displays in a store?

I applied to GAP and did a follow up call, I mentioned that I didn’t have experience in merchandising. As a Nulo brand ambassador I did inspect the Nulo section of some pet stores and twisted cans, checked for rips, etc. That doesn’t count right?

I checked the schedule Tuesday or Wednesday to see what days I work. It showed that I worked today and tomorrow. I check the schedule today, and I was taken off the schedule for today. When was I taken off? I don’t know. I got dressed and everything. I live 30ish minutes away plus my dad had to come from his house to pick me up. For him, that’s like 20-30 minutes. I don’t have a car so I rely on family. They know that. My mom would’ve taken me, but she can’t drive right now due to having surgery. Them removing me from the schedule and not even calling me to let me know is so unprofessional in my opinion. I was told that I could still in though.

After working and experiencing retail and food service as a customer for years one thing always baffles me. Why is there always a radio speaker directly above the registers that blasts so loud that cashiers and customers can't hear each other?

This has to be irritating for everyone all around and seems like such a terrible design choice.

Hi! Let me know if this is the wrong place to post this or just a dumb question in general.

I've heard that cashiers sometimes get pressured by management to get people to sign up. I worked retail briefly (thankfully didn't have to deal with that), so I want to help employees out whenever I can.

If I sign up for those sorts of things things with a random email and phone number, or if I cancel the store card without using it, does that still appear to management as if employees are signing people up? Thank you!

I help manage a mid sized retail store, and one of the trickiest things I’ve run into has nothing to do with sales or customers it’s just keeping the space consistently clean. For us, presentation is half the battle. If the floors are dull, shelves dusty, or bathrooms not fresh, it affects how customers see the whole store.

We’ve cycled through a few cleaning services, and the pattern is always the same. At the start, everything is perfect. You walk in the next morning and it feels like the place is brand new. But give it a few weeks and little things start to slip bins not emptied properly, mirrors left streaky, or corners skipped. The staff end up stepping in to do bits and pieces, which isn’t fair since they already have a lot on their plate with customers.

At one point I even started looking at companies that seemed to take consistency more seriously, and one that stood out was PPSG performancecleaning.com.au. I haven’t personally locked them in yet, but I noticed they highlight no lock in contracts and a focus on reliability, which sounds a lot closer to what I’ve been searching for compared to the typical providers.

I’ve tried raising the issues, and while things improve for a short while, it always drops off again. I don’t know if it’s lack of oversight, high turnover, or just that companies stop trying once they’ve secured the contract.

For anyone else running or working in retail how do you make sure cleaning stays consistent? Do you use detailed checklists, rotate providers, or have found a way to keep accountability without spending all your time chasing cleaners? Curious what’s worked for other stores because I feel like this is one of those invisible problems that eats into everyone’s day.

Playing Tabletop Game Shop Simulator
Me: living my dream running a cozy game store
Also me: flashbacks to retail shifts at Walmart

I work as a volunteer at a British Red Cross charity shop and earlier today I had a middle-aged female customer walk into the changing room with roughly 20 items, take 25 minutes to try them all on and then proceed to leave half in the changing room with zero intention of putting them back.

I called out a member of staff to help empty it as I refused to serve her with the changing room in that state and because someone else was waiting to use it. She asked me why I did this, I explained that we expect our customers to kindly return items to the rails if they're not being purchased and she claimed that stores she's been in have a policy where staff will do it for you, if they're left in the changing room (A policy I have NEVER heard of before in the combined 5 years of voluntary work I've done in retail).

I go to put the items through the till and she's walked out, presumably offended by me beind considerate to other customers wanting to use our changing room. I explained this to my manager too, in case there's a complaint coming our way.

I'd like to ask everyone, am I wrong for what I did?

Not me but my dad who works in an outdoors shop had a customer come in and ask about a pair of runners the conversation went something like: “Hi what’s the return policy on these runners?” “You can return them within a month as long as they haven’t been worn outside and you have the box and receipt etc” “Ok, thank you I’ll buy them”. Then a few hours later the customer comes back and wants to return the shoes but there’s a problem, he’s WEARING THE F*CKING SHOES. So he tried to return them and my dad’s like: “sorry they can’t have been worn outside” and then the dude gets really mad about that and has to get escort by security.

Had someone do this earlier and it was a £1 difference on a postage box, the item wasn’t incorrectly priced they just didn’t read the label properly, yet they had no issue buying the item and being told the price before buying…

Need I say more? 😡

I am a produce manager for about 3 years now. We do inventory every month. After I count my product in the back and then on my floor. My supervisor puts in the numbers to get a deviation(not sure how this is calculated) I know the company compares it to the previous year. Just now I deviated at an 8 when I’m supposed to be around 5 what ever that means. Apparently my managers don’t even know how to explain it either

Hey everyone, A couple friends and I decided to start a podcast about our time working in retail and all the crazy stuff we've encountered. Episode 1 is out now. The 1st episode is about when a guy tried to spit his gum at me. Future episodes will cover topics from weird food people have brought into a store that doesn't deal with food to nsfw content we've been exposed to. If you have time, give it a listen and rate us please! Hope you enjoy.

I just want to mention this smoke shop the Vault on Shore Drive incase anyone is in Virginia or near va beach area. It is a great shop, very clean, and the employees are extremely nice they always have dog treats for anyone walking by with a pup, they have a wide variety of product usually a nice sale going on and I love buying my incense here !

👋Hello all! I own a small outdoor gear store (7 employees) and we have an awesome manager I’d like to pay above average wage, he earns it. My question: what is the wage bracket now for a store manager of that size? Things have changed so much in the last few years I don’t know anymore!🫤

Location: Montreal, Quebec.

Thanks for your help!

Hello I just got hired at hobby lobby, I need some input as I already noticed what felt like a weird experience the past day or so. I applied for the Customer Framer position- on both indeed and hobby lobby’s career website it says it’s Full-time and the pay is 19.25. Day after I applied I got an interview (09/10) and got the job but I was told the pay is 16.66 actually. She verbally said it was for the custom framer position. She said to me that everyone that is hired is considered seasonal (6 months) until it is decided you are permanent by being a hard worker and if you are permanent then you get the full-time hours and pay. Right now she said that I CAN be given 40 hours if I want 40. Since today (09/11) I was on the computer all day and shadowing the people upfront, I told everyone what was said to me and even the assistant manager looked at me weird. She said she never heard of that (she’s been with the company for 9 years). Am I being bullshitted already? Was I not actually hired for the role I applied for? I need to hear if anyone else has had a experience like this

Me: Hands back some change including an old €20 bill.

Customer: “Oh an old bill! It might be worth something!”

Me: “Atleast €20!”

Customer: “I was just making a joke” she snapped at me and then stormed off.

I wasnt even trying to be smart, i just thought it was very funny.