Retail Quotes

“You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place where you first kissed so-and-so is now a discount electronics retailer, that where you bought this very jacket is now rubble behind a blue plywood fence and a future office building. Damage has been done to your city. You say, ''It happened overnight.'' But of course it didn't. Your pizza parlor, his shoeshine stand, her hat store: when they were here, we neglected them. For all you know, the place closed down moments after the last time you walked out the door. (Ten months ago? Six years? Fifteen? You can't remember, can you?) And there have been five stores in that spot before the travel agency. Five different neighborhoods coming and going between then and now, other people's other cities. Or 15, 25, 100 neighborhoods. Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York

“His face held a certain impassivity; you see it in all waiters and valets. They might want to jam a knife through your left eye socket, but you'd never know it from their expression. Working retail, I've acquired a similar look myself.”
― Ann Aguirre, Blue Diablo

“I’ve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores.”
― R.C. Sproul, Lifeviews: Make a Christian Impact on Culture and Society

“90 percent of all Gillette shavers are bought by women for the men in their lives”
― Martin Lindstrom, Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy

“Bling" is not an indication of riches. It is a product of value-based spending, to enrich the pockets of those outside of ones sphere of influence...the haves' bleeding the have-nots'.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“Over a decade of citywide rezonings, land speculations, and corporate bidding wars for available commercial space has produced a Darwinian habitat where corporate retail proliferates, and where mom-and-pops have become an endangered species.”
― Alessandro Busà, The Creative Destruction of New York City: Engineering the City for the Elite

“Being in business is the most fascinating kind of art.
Making money is art and working is art, and good business is the best art”
― Andy Warhol

“CUSTOMER: Is your poetry section split up into rhyming and non-rhyming sections?

BOOKSELLER: No, it’s just in alphabetical order. What kind of poetry are you looking for?

CUSTOMER: Rhyming. Preferably iambic pentameter, in poems of no more than ten lines, by a female poet. But, other than that, I don’t mind.”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“Customer: This book has a couple of tears to some of the pages.

Me: Yes, unfortunately some of the older books haven’t had as much love as they should have done from previous owners.

Customer: So, will you lower the price? It says here it’s £20.

Me: I’m sorry but we take into account the condition of the books when we price them; if that book was in a better condition, it would be worth a lot more than £20.

Customer: Well, you can’t have taken this tear here into account *points to page* or this one here *points to another page* because my son did those two minutes ago.

Me: So, the book is now more damaged than it was before, because of your son?

Customer: Yes. Exactly. So will you lower the price?”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“Buy One Get One stops for no one.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“The way an angry Canadian shopper argues with a retail sales associate who believes the customer is always right is like watching two ducks fight. It’s as harmless as two pillows on a bed, and watching is liable to put you to sleep.”
― Jarod Kintz, One Out of Ten Dentists Agree: This Book Helps Fight Gingivitis. Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Ask Nine More Dentists.: A BearPaw Duck And Meme Farm Production

“All retailers need to adjust their product delivery systems to the new omni-channel shopping trends.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Karma is real.”
― George Troy, The Five Laws of Retail: How the Most Successful Businesses Have Mastered Them and How You Should Too

“Customer: Forgotten my glasses, could you read the beginning of this book to me to see if I like it?”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“Why does Joe Normie think it’s a litmus test for morality if one returns one’s shopping cart? Big-box stores put out of business local retailers, they automated their systems to reduce employees, and they got customers to be their own cashiers without getting paid for their labor, and yet to prove I’m a good person, I’m supposed to do more unpaid work for them to streamline their operation?”
― Jarod Kintz, Eggs, they’re not just for breakfast

“Listen. Don't sexually harass Brenda and also, the guy who wants 15 percent off that kitchen mixer he found in the sale bin can go fuck himself because it was never in the sale bin and he knows it.”
― Matt Bellassai, Everything Is Awful: And Other Observations

“He tips his head to the side and grins. “That’s too bad. It’s lonely on this side of the store,” he says and glances at the register beside us.

“It’s lonely over there too,” I say honestly, thinking of the lack of real connection between me and Camilla.

Blaine’s eyes light with humor, and I smack a hand over my mouth as I realize I said that out loud.

He leans closer to me and whispers, “We’ll both survive somehow.”
― Kayla Krantz, The OCD Games

“Advising people about clothes is a bit funny sometimes, it is a bit like judging a book by its cover.”
― Alain Bremond-Torrent, running is flying intermittently

“We’re not a family, we’re a firm”
― George VI

“The golden age is before us, not behind us.”
― William Shakespeare

“It’s always the first rule of customer service. Make eye contact, smile, say hello. To EVERYONE: your fellow employees, customers, everyone connected with the extended community.”
― George Troy, The Five Laws of Retail: How the Most Successful Businesses Have Mastered Them and How You Should Too

“Jack was excellent at his job as long as he stuck to Mr Lemon’s instructions, ‘Always be nice to the customers, even if some of them are arrogant assholes.”
― Jim Lowe, New Reform

“Personally, I believe that spending heavily on the decorations and display designs makes new
clients out of random window shoppers”
― Anas O Hamshari B Sc, Bringing the World of Super Luxury to Kuwait: 2014 Dissertation by Anas O. H. Hamshari, from the European School of Economics in Florence, Italy

“The future of retail has arrived — Ginkgo, the latest in digital technology in retail, is an application that blends e-commerce and retail. By connecting retail with online, Ginkgo offers one platform with all the retail solutions, hailing the future of digital retail as a complete digital transformation in retail.”
― Usman Ali, The Guilt

“Retaining (of customers and employees) wins retailing”
― Sijin Bt

“[Shopping is a] Mardi Gras of consumerism.”
― Russell Brand, Revolution

“SIMPLICITY is the new EDLP! Make it easy for them... and they will buy it from you again and again and again. Frictionless fulfillment is the Retail of the future.”
― Ted Rubiin

“SIMPLICITY is the new EDLP! Make it easy for them... and they will buy it from you again and again and again. Frictionless fulfillment is the Retail of the future.”
― Ted Rubin, Retail Relevancy: How Brands and Retailers will Connect in a Post-Physical World

“There was nothing he needed or wished to buy; but he liked to see the display of goods, any goods, objects made by men, to be used by men. He enjoyed the sight of a prosperous street;”
― Ayn Rand

“Please come again… when I’m not working.”
― Squidward Tentacles