TIPS AS SOMEONE WHO HAS WORKED RETAIL at an unnamed store for, obvious reasons.
(Think either @merican 33agle, G@rrage, teen clothing store with micd up employees)
-the mall i worked at was literal shit, like its the biggest mall in our area but the mall security is terrible lmao. wed call them for a lifter and they’d take a good 30 mins, by the time they come the lifter is long gone. but that’s different with every mall and dont rely on that.
-most of the time if we have early morning teen shoppers my managers on comms would tell me to keep an eye on them if i was working front of store, they know teens like their sleep
-stores sometimes have a codeword if you’re on mic for a shoplifter, if u hear some word out of the ordinary being mentioned by an employee that’s glaring at you, drop your shit and go. run the fuck outta there
-eg “a pineapple in womens clearance is scoping out the tank tops”
-“apple heading towards fitting rooms”
-again with the point above, if you suddenly see like 3 employees simultaneously look at u its most likely that u were mentioned on comms. my store was terrible at it because we were all nosey lol. sometimes it isnt lifting related like “ooo i like her bag “ or “i love the lady in mens clearance’s hair”.
-with some stores if you beep and u dont have a bag from our store we aren’t actually required + its not advised to check ur bags. so many people beeped at my store when i was working there but my managers would wave them off because they had bags from other stores. especially z@ra. z@ra was notorious at our mall for never detagging their items lol.
-if u plan on detagging in fitting rooms be wary of who’s running it. if its a teen they probably dont give a flying fuck about whos coming in, sometimes my coworkers would just wave people in and put an estimate of items on their door just to keep the line moving. if it looks like someone knows how to do their job is running fitting rooms be very wary. they may check in on customers in fitting rooms.
-don’t spend over 10 mins in fitting rooms. maybe if you brought 20 items in that’d make sense but then again managers would flag that as suspicious. i know some stores have lifted their max amount of items allowed in but ideally only bring in 5-6 at a time. if a customer’s taking 20 mins in there we usually would have to check in on them and attempt to get some rejected clothing items from them, and if they aren’t cooperating i had to call a manager over
-don’t be mean but dont be overly nice and chatty. if you’re super mean we’ll talk shit about u on comms 😭 and if you’re overly nice we’ll compliment u over comms which leads people to look in ur direction.
-be easy to forget in every store ur in. wear what’s trendy & solid colours. i can’t count the amount of girls that would come in w a tank top, zip hoodie and flare jeans/leggings. that’s pretty much the trend atm and u are like a needle in a haystack.
-don’t look super alternative. i love u emo bitches but when u come into an 0ld n@avy for example u stick out!!! 😭😭 it just makes the security description way easier for us too. one time my manager called mall security about a brown haired girl in sweatpants and a black mask and security brought in the wrong damn girl! i felt so bad.
that’s it for now loves lmk if u have any other questions…
