Retailer Rant - Or Why On-Line might be better

FAOL Community Sound Off
1

Sorry for the rant, but a recent trip to a local retailer got me thinking - maybe sometimes, just sometimes, the local stores fold because of bad customer service, and not just being undercut by big on-line retailers. I try to support local merchants as much as possible, but sometimes I’d rather deal with a faceless computer screen and UPS.

I was at one of my local retailers to buy $20-30 worth of tying materials. I ended up having the following conversation with the shop employee/owner. (Conversation condensed to its essence).

Shop employee asks “where are you fishing?”
Me: “Well, I am going for steelhead on River XX.”
Employee: “Cool. What’s your setup?”
Me: “XX lenght XX weight rod.”
Emp. “What line? What reel?”
Me: “XYZ and ABC.”
Emp. “Well, that’s really the wrong set up for that river. Where did you get the rod - I bet it was a ‘show special.’” (he says with a patronizing tone as if only an idiot would buy a rod at a show.)

Emp. then proceeds to pull out 3 very very nice high-end rods, $500+ each. “Here feel this.” Me: “Well, yes, this is sure nice in the hand.” Emp: “Try it with this super sweet reel.” (Puts on $500+ reel.) Me: “Well, that sure is sweet. But I’m not spending that kind of coin.” Emp: “What do you do for a living?” Me: “XYZ.” Emp, laughing “Oh, you can afford This.”

Seriously!!! They basically made fun my gear, and impliedly suggested that I was an idiot for using that gear on that river. And then tried to up-sell me a kit in excess of $1,000, again with the suggestion that I would be an idiot to fish River XX with anything else. Seriously, that’s how that treat new customers off the street (I am not a regular there.)

Like I said, some retailers, even local ones, do not deserve our support. Needless to say, I will not spend a cent in that store. Not that I’m a big spender, but a sale is a sale, especially in a recession. After all, rods, reels and lines to need to be replaced once on a while.

Oh, and once I got home, I bought the tying stuff I was looking for on-line. Probably cost a little more with shipping, but the on-line shopping basket did not patronize me!

Sorry for the rant. But maybe some retailers will hear the lesson!

Dave

2

If my father were to see this he quote Matthew 25:35

“And I was a stranger and ye took me in”

:wink:

3

Hi Dave,

Just kidding about the line but where is the XX River? :slight_smile: I don’t think that you have to worry, this fly shop will be a thing of the past very quickly. You might want to find out if the tactful expert is the owner or an employee. If he’s just an employee, you might be able to make him a thing of the past. I’m a pretty easy going guy but I would have been royally pissed as well. 8T :slight_smile:

4

It is hard for many salespeople to remember that there is a line between casual/personal comments and professionalism. And yes you can be a clerk in a fishing store and be professional.

It is unfortunate when you bump into someone who just goes off like that.

5

Well Dave,
The employee might work on a commission or bonus scale.
You know, the automotive industry is tanking, so there are a lot of car salesmen out of work.
If the guy was in Polyester, that might be a dead giveaway. :confused:
I wouldn’t give up on the shop, not just yet. They probably have supplies you would like to have or need.
My work partners wife out fished most with a stick and a short piece of line on a creek they lived on for about 20 years. She taught their daughters how to fish and bring home dinner, with a stick and a short piece of line.
So don’t let that wiener put you off of what might be a good place to pick up a few things.
Find somebody different to help you, or make it clear you are not interested in a new rod and reel (unless you really are).
Ask yourself, “What makes this guy more knowledgeable than me about my gear?” :wink:
After all, he’s just a salesman. You haven’t even seen him cast a fly yet. :rolleyes:

6

Hmmm, I usually get ignored!

Maybe it has something to do with letting them know I can build a rod twice as good as any rod in their shop at 1/4 the price and I wasn’t interested in spending a fortune on something that just holds the line.

Then they ask what I fish for and I tell them my Medalist handles the Tuna quite well :slight_smile:

7

Hmmm, I usually get ignored!–PanFisher

if you want to be truly invisible in an out-of-town fly shop, be female. all eyes raise when the door chime goes “ding!” and they look right past me. if Best Fishing Buddy is along, they focus there. if he’s not there, they go back to whatever they were doing. this leaves me browsing happily, quite undisturbed.

8

You’ve got Tuna in Arizona? I wanna come fish at your place! :smiley: :lol:

Really, there ARE some seriously big fish in the Colorado Reever… :wink: We’ve seen and caught some of them.

Back on track:
Salesmen? Anybody can whip a salesman! :rolleyes:

Your dollars walking out the door is a serious slap in the shop owners face. :shock:
Might mention it to them if you return. :wink:

9

Boy, that clerk would’ve really had fun with me. My equipment is anything but ‘high-end’. In fact, some of it may not even qualify for ‘low end’. But it works, and I bring fish home with it.

I have to side with you on this one. Nothing irritates me more than a clerk who is more interested in selling me stuff, than helping me find what I need. And it happens all too often, and not just with fishing stuff.

My wife is a retired retail salesperson. She sold men’s clothing at Brooks Brothers. In days gone by, retail sales people were required to be professional, have abundant knowledge of their products, and be able to ‘assist’ a person in finding just what they need. I never saw my wife ‘pressure’ anyone, nor make any derogatory comments on what they were wearing. As always, she treated everybody with respect, and showed a lot of class (and still does). I remember when this used to be the norm, everywhere, from Abercrombie and Fitch, to the local grocery store.

It seems we have moved away from providing a public service, to simply trying to separate someone from as much money as possible, as quickly as possible. Remember (if you are old enough) when you could pull into a Filling Station, and 3 or 4 people would rush out, clean your windows, check the fliuds and pump the gas for you, and be genuinely happy that you came there for fuel? Now, you have to pre-pay, stand in line while they sell beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets, and could care less about anything but your money.

It’s a sad comment on the times…

10

Sonny, That’s their clue. I believe they think me some what of a smart #$^&, but that’s what I want them to think. It allows me to browse and find what I want. When I’m done I walk to the cash register and then I get attention!

11

I second this. One a trip to the fly shop a few years ago, I encountered an employee who actually relayed to me the story of how a woman had come in with a wish list that her husband had put together (she was not a flyfisher) and he had to explain to her why her husband didn’t really want the particular set up he had listed for her, and how the clerk sold her an outfit better suited to her husbands needs, and much higher in price. All I could think was, ‘what an…’ and I didn’t buy anything that day, and decided to forget that shop. Later I thought about it, and discovered that he was not the owner. That shop has become my main source for tying materials now, and most of the other folks there have been more than helpful. I wouldn’t give up on the shop, just the salesperson.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to get the guy in trouble, just smile and say, “Ya think so?” and buy what you need. Guys like that get themselves in trouble all by themselves.

12

I don’t know what he was trying to sell you, if he thought you should have a rod for higher line number or what. But I do know that you fish using your head and with the right fly of course.
How long you cast and how you present the fly is a question of skill not gear.
Talent for finding the fish is the best equipment you can bring to the stream.

Thorarinn.

13

Hummm…“It is hard for many salespeople to remember that there is a line between casual/personal comments and professionalism. And yes you can be a clerk in a fishing store and be professional.”

Sorry, I don’t buy (:shock:) this. That kind of service (sic) would send me away from the shop but probably not before asking to see the manager. I know shops can be far between, even in urban areas. On the othe hand, talking about gear isn’t the same as talking about the price of milk. That place would never see me again, which was the point of the post!!! If I didn’t have a friendly fly shop, I’d be online to buy exclusively.
Coughlin

14

I had something similar happen to me the first time I went into a local fly shop looking for tying supplies. To make conversation I asked for the guy working there to help me catch trout in a certain section of the Yough River here in southwest PA. I said that my buddy always outfishes me and I wanted to do better. The guy behind the counter told me that I shouldn’t fish that section of river because it was “no good” and he then went back to his computer game and I left without buying anything.

He went out of business about two months later. I guess it wasn’t only me that felt poorly treated.

15

Two schools of thought here.

  1. Those you can, fish. Those you cant, work retail.
    or
  2. Those purists who look down their noses and say one can only truly fly fish (and only for trout with a dry fly) if they have big name outrageously over-priced gear, -vs- the a real sportsman who is content to fish with whatever gear he/she has and can affordably obtain.

Next time a clerk ask you what setup you have and where you’re fishing, ask him/her how big their TV is and where do they live. If I had any merchandise in my hands at that point I would have politely ask the clerk to hold it for you then turn around walk out.

Sorry, but if someone tells me I NEED a $500 rod and a $500 reel, I really don’t have a problem with telling them they NEED to pull their head out of their @$$! I bought a $60 8wt White River Dogwood Canyon complete outfit from BassPro 10 years ago for LMB and smallies, and it still serves me quite well.

16

I’ve run into this in both fly and archery shops over the years. It is getting worse in my opinion. Several times I’ve been unable to stop myself from being brutally blunt. It never goes over well;)

17

Good thread.
I have moved it to "Sound off " as I feel that is the proper place for it.

Denny

18

Yeah, like you need a $500 rod and reel for stealhead. A $200 xyz reel barstock and made in the USA will take on the biggest saltwater fish.

19

I don’t let store employees bother me. I do enough research before I buy to know what I want. If the store clerks tells me I am buying the wrong thing or I need a more expensive item, I smile and buy the item I intended to buy in the first place. I don’t have the time to get upset over something as meaningless as a store clerk trying to upsell me. If it is store I visit often, I tell them I know what I want and to stop trying to sell me something I don’t want if they want to keep my business. I have no problem telling a store clerk how I feel.

20

What Dave described is why the list of fly shops I will NOT visit is quite long and varied. I have encountered this attitude many times in the past, and always to the detriment of the shop in question. As it stands now, I have no shop nearby that I will visit because of the attitudes of the employees therein.

The fastest way to get me out the door is to tell me that I don’t know what I want. The second fastest is to question my abilities. The third is to not have what I am looking for. Only the third one can be remedied easily.

That being said, I called a shop that was my local haunt a couple years and a thousand miles ago, and ordered two dozen flies last week, for a trip a thousand miles in another direction.