When retail environments go bad

Recent Old Navy trip. The management appears to have stopped caring about displaying clothing in an appealling manner. I’ve seen good will stores that were more clean. I had difficulty pushing Leta around in the cart because debris, clothing and hangers kept getting in the way.

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  • http://www.roosmom.com Cory

    I’ve noticed that about the Old Navy by me too! (In Illinois) What the heck is up with that? Do they think because they have bargains there, we should have to wade through all their shit? Pigs!

    God, I hate that I have money charged up on my Old Navy card!

  • Weasel

    Yeesh! I’ve seen our local ON trashed from time to time, particularly in the week before x-moose, but that is awful.

    They recently opened an IKEA in south Philadelphia, which would seem like an untrashable store… Philly rose to the challenge and the place looks like the pick bins at a dollar store.

  • Crystal

    Weasel…ya gotta go to the “Kaahhnnnshahaaaakin” Ikea…although they did curiously remove the lovely little cafe area from the center of the downstairs area. I really liked that little cafe area! My husband and I wandered around like blithering idiots looking for it the last time we were there, and I was like “I know it used to be RIGHT HERE!” And he was like, “No honey, you are so confused. Let’s keep looking.” The man is directionally challenged.

    Old Navy thinks they own us because you can’t find cute cheap clothes very many other places.

  • Sara

    As a former ON employee I once organized the “sale” area in the back, which probably took a good 4 hours, and no kidding, in less than an hour it was destroyed!

  • http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=rbearclaw robin

    If they only spent as much money on their displays as they do on their headsets.

  • Andrew

    I’ve noticed this a lot lately. Torn up displays, just piles of clothes laying around, dirty Starbucks (horror!), just generally crappy retail environments.

    I attribute it to an improving economy. When the economy is awful, it pushes more…serious…employees down to the services sector having to sling coffee or stack sweaters. And the managers take things seriously since they’re having trouble selling anything.

    But when things heat up, we’re back to slacking high school kids who only care about making enough money to pay their cell phone bills and sales figures that seem to stay inflated no matter what the store looks like.

    This is related to my other indicator of the economy – how many fast food restaurants have ‘help wanted’ signs up.

  • http://prettycrabby.com Em

    Our Old Navy is pretty ghetto. You have to rest up before you go there because you know you are going to have to actively DIG through pile after pile to find anything resembling your own size.

  • http://www.paintingchef.blogspot.com Susannah

    Hi, never commented here before but I had to delurk for this one. I worked at a department store in Tennessee for a year or so and the mess that became of the displays was NOTHING compared to what I found once in a dressing room. A pile of jeans that some disgusting person had PEED ON! No joke. It was so nauseating, I quit that day.

    But you’re right about Old Navy. That place is always a wreck. I stick to shopping on their website, the dressing rooms are much neater.

  • jess

    susannah – i know what you mean. i worked in a clothing store for a while when i was living in england and people always left gross things in the changing rooms – used tampons, vomit, piles of disgusting garbage, urine, whatever. a complete lack of respect for everybody who works there.

    i’m in ontario and the old navy at the mall near my house is always clean, it’s actually pretty crazy how neat they keep it. they have about 40 people working there at a time though, which takes the pressure off fixing the racks because there are more than enough people to help out.

  • http://www.laughitupfuzzball.com Tracy

    Susannah, I do the same thing, web shopping all the way. I was in Old Navy a couple of weeks ago and it was DISGUSTING. It looked just like Blurb’s pic!

  • http://www.cottagegirl.net Milly

    I was at the Old Navy in my town after Christmas, in January, and it was a complete disaster! I know one of the managers who works there and he said they couldn’t keep up with the mess because they didn’t have the help. But all the stores I’ve shopped in are really messy, except for one. I think that one stays clean because it’s in a more upscale neighborhood. Old Navy is owned by Gap, but I’ve never seen a messy Gap store anywhere.

  • http://www.amyok.blogspot.com A.O.K.

    Are you kidding me? I’ve seen Gap stores that looked like they belonged on the West Bank, never mind the in the United States! Gap can be just as bad as Old Navy. I guess it just depends on the neighborhood.

  • http://www.paintingchef.blogspot.com Susannah

    jess–what IS it with people and dressing rooms? I mean, I’ve never been so grossed out. What in the hell is WRONG with these people, what possesses them to…oh…ew, I can’t even think about it. But you’re right with that list, everything on it PLUS dirty diapers. The shopping part of the store may be a war zone and that’s bad enough but those dressing rooms are like toxic waste dumps.

    Tell me about it Tracey, I’m an internet shopper all the way now. Much better to try it all on in my own clean bedroom.

  • http://www.kwugirl.com Katherine

    I used to never shop at Old Navy because I was so afraid of the huge piles of mess. Then I went to a few that were actually organized and clean and found out that I liked it there, so now I brave the store once in awhile.

  • http://bevanandjen.diaryland.com Jen

    The only reason why I brave ON up here in the Arctic Tundra that is Canada is that the ON website won’t allow me to buy online. And who can resist those freaking prices?

  • http://jesslin.com/blog/ jesslin

    Our old navy is like that too! It’s surprisingly discusting. I didn’t realise how much a clean store contributed to a positive shopping experience. I can’t even go into Old Navy anymore because it’s just so unkempt I get anxious! It’s so sad because I’ve only had a few years of ON experience cause they just came to Ottawa like 4 years ago.

  • http://petitej.blogspot.com PetiteJ

    Look, I can relate & sympathize but y’all need to ease off your high expectations. Retail people back me up here. Because unless you have dealt with women w/ Louis Vuitton bags screaming at you to give them a $5 price adjustment on items bought three weeks ago, cleaned out a dressing room after an irate mother told her toddler to pee in there because we denied her the use of our bathroom (hello, liability issue!), straightened the whole store only to have a pack of “just lookers” come in 5 mintues to closing and mess everything up, or had to handle VISIBLY WORN PANTIES returned the day after Valentine’s day, then you need to back off! Sure it’s messy but it’s OLD NAVY. If you want class then shop at Saks. If you want cheap deals, then shop ON & don’t be surprised when it’s a mess because they keep their overhead down by hiring the only people crazy enough to deal with retail customers for $6.50/hr – teenagers.

  • http://byrneout.livejournal.com byrneout

    PetiteJ is right. Poor service is the tradeoff for low prices. If they had more staff on the floor, if they paid the staff enough to attract more skilled and dedicated labor, then people would be a little shier about acting like baboons in the produce aisle — but prices would go up accordingly. I don’t mean to excuse the consumers’ inconsiderate behavior, but you do get what you pay for.

  • jess

    if you work at a place like old navy or the gap or wherever, your job is to keep the store presentable to the public. you are being paid to keep the store clean and make people want to come in and shop there. if you don’t like doing that job, quit. it’s that simple.

    customers need to understand that the reason stores don’t let people use their washrooms is because the customers before them have abused that privilege (in the store i worked at someone used the washroom and threw shit all over the walls and sink and everything!), that doesn’t give them the right to do whatever they want in the change rooms, leaving their garbage, or worse (as listed above).

    i know how it is to deal with people screaming at you all day, telling you you’re doing your job wrong, yelling at you about prices and generally making you feel like crap about how you do your job even when you’re in the right. i have learned through many years of working in retail that the customer is NOT always right!
    now when i shop i put things back where i found them after i’ve decided i’m not going to buy it. sometimes i find myself facing a shelf to make it look better and then i remember i don’t work in retail anymore (THANK GOD!). and if there are times when i don’t put something back where i found it, i don’t drop it on the floor either. nobody wants to buy something that has been laying on the floor or stepped on by a thousand people.

    wow, that was a long rant. sorry people. :)

  • http://aredeaf.blogspot.com Coelecanth

    I manage a used book store. A few years back the horror paperback section was constantly a mess. I accused the staff of never sorting it, which they denied. This went on for over a month.

    One day I noticed a woman in the section who was acting odd. Nothing I could put my finger on, just odd. I watched her surreptitiously for almost 10 minutes. She was taking books of the rack, staring intently at them and putting them back in a different place. It was deliberate and methodical.

    I kept watching longer than I normally would have because I couldn’t figure out how she was ordering them.
    At first I thought she was putting ones with simliar covers together, but there were a many that didn’t fit the pattern. [She's got a book with a Satanic child on the cover, it's going to go over there with the twins with the burning eyes...nope, next to the bloody knife...]

    Eventually I asked her what she was doing. She said she was looking for books and when I replied “No, I was watching, you’re sorting them and I was wondering how exactly?” she dropped the book in her hand and walked out without another word. Never saw her again.

    Retail: where the wacky meet the whacked and everyone goes away confused.

  • http://www.dadgonemad.com Dr. Johnny Fever

    You people just don’t know design flare when you see it. That’s the new style. It’s called Modern Bedroom Floor. It’s all the rage in Milan.

  • http://www.susannahperry.com Susannah

    Sorry Dr. Johnny, we’re all just a little behind the times I guess…

  • http://www.laughitupfuzzball.com Tracy

    Ohhh I’m remembering all of the nasty things that I would find in dressing rooms when I managed an Eddie Bauer. Let’s see: scabby bandaids, dirty diapers, USED CONDOMS…I mean, what the HELL???

  • http://thefathousewife.blogspot.com/ Strizz

    Nothing wrong with safe sex.

    Our Old Navy is clean.

    The no bathroom policy for kids is STUPID.

  • http://juicyvignettist.com JuicyV

    Yep. It’s a company wide policy. The Old Navy in Chicago look like crap. But nothing is worse than the staff who are also KIDS MAKING OUT IN THE AISLES! I mean come on. That’s what the dressing rooms are for. Just ask Tracy!!

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