26.05.2009: hands off my stock!

For want of a better narrative device, I'm going to start this entry with a ten-second quiz question. The question is this: among ex-pats living in former Soviet countries, what do you imagine is the biggest source of complaint? Is it

a) stodgy food
b) the de-humanising influence of socialist urban planning
c) a lack of safety standards and medical care
d) hassles from the militsia (and similar groups elsewhere); or
e) the freezing winters?

Answer: actually, it's none of these. They all come up from time to time, but when ex-pats in Russian-speaking countries get together and compare notes about the former USSR as they find it, there's one thing that nearly ALWAYS makes it onto the whinge list, and here it is:

Rude shop assistants.

The Former USSR is home to some of the worst customer service on Earth. Spend any length of time here, and you'll inevitably be confronted with counter staff who display a complete indifference to the customer, sometimes to the point where they simply refuse to acknowledge his or her presence in their shop. At other times, you'll find yourself the target of an inexplicable hostility, as angry shop assistants thrust their goods at you with an accusatory glare - the kind of look you'd expect if you were confiscating their last remaining blankets on a freezing cold winter's night, knowing that your actions would probably result in the deaths of their infant children. In situations like this, you don't DARE give them anything but the exact money, for fear of them leaping over the counter, pulling a knife from their apron and planting it firmly in your neck.

This bizarre retail culture is deeply-rooted, and (as some of you know) enquiring about its origins tends to open a can of worms that you can never entirely close. But regardless of the causes, the fact remains that walking into a shop in this part of the world can sometimes be reminiscent of the scene from the classic movie Clerks, in which Randall (a petrol station attendant) points to a black cat who is using his shop counter as a toilet. Randall glances down at the cat, then looks at the horrified person he's about to serve, and says (referring to the cat): "I call him 'annoying customer' ".

Most of the ex-pats I know come from Western countries, where the carefully-oiled smile of every front-of-house employee forms a necessary part of our daily existence. So the brusque and dispassionate way in which retail transactions are handled here tends to upset the sensibilities of these Westerners, and many of them take it as evidence that Russians, Kazakhs etc. are cold and hostile. And while retail rage isn't quite as common here in KZ as it is in Russia, you still encounter it often enough to make it a feature of day-to-day life. This is especially difficult to cope with if you're an ex-pat American, trying to make the transition from "Have a Nice Day" to "get the fuck out of my store".

My own reaction, meanwhile, varies wildly depending on the kind of day I'm having. If I'm in a rush to get somewhere, and the shop staff are doing their best to pretend I'm invisible, it can be very infuriating. I've walked out of numerous shops in disgust, or just plain resignation. At other times, though, I find the dysfunctional nature of it all quite hilarious, and I have to suppress laughter as I come under the withering gaze of shop assistants. Most often, though, it's neither of these; it's more a kind of fascination that won't leave me, because the headspace of these people who are growling at me for buying their products is just so very ... er, what can I say? ... well, it's just so very STRANGE.

I sometimes even have the suspicion that there are actually strategies being employed here to prevent me from buying things. It's almost as if these retail people like their stock so much that they'd rather not part with it. And since you, the customer, are making this more difficult for them ... well, obviously that makes you the enemy, right?

The logical outcome of all this is that, in the former USSR, retail success lies not in selling your products, but rather in keeping them around you for as long as possible. So, in this light, I here present my guide to successful retailing in the former USSR. I hope it proves useful.

"THE NINE PATHS TO RETAIL NIRVANA"
(Or "How to Deter Your Customers and Keep Your Precious Stock Where it Belongs")

1. Frighten customers away.
This is one of the most tried-and-trusted paths to success in retail. You simply set yourself up at a shop counter and bark like a rabid dog at anyone who dares to approach. They may be slow, but eventually they'll get the message.

2. Hide the good stuff.
If you notice that certain products are becoming too popular for your liking, hide them behind less popular ones. Occasionally a determined foreigner will stand in front of, say, the cereal shelves and sort through the labyrinth of chocolate-frosted rubbish to locate the only edible box of cereal in your store. But mostly, they'll just go "Oh damn, they've run out again", and give up. Victory for you.

A note on this technique: it works for restaurants and stoloviye* too. Just buy yourself one of those glass display cabinets like they have in supermarket delis, and put a few scary-looking pastries and some day-old salads on display. Meanwhile, hide the freshly-cooked, steaming plov** (and anything else edible) underneath a blanket in the bottom of the cabinet. This way, only those in the know will realise that there's anything worth eating, and you won't have to serve so many of these vile people who want to take your lovingly-prepared food away from you.

3. Have no good stuff in the first place.
It's often been said that necessity is the mother of invention, and this is certainly true of our third point. Pioneering supermarkets like "Semya" have realised that, if you want to prevent the greedy seagulls known in some circles as "customers" from coming in and picking away at your stock, you can adopt a strategy that echoes the Golden Soviet Years. In those days, supermarkets were often sparsely-stocked, hollow spaces, because supply regularly fell short of demand. But just because the stock is available nowadays doesn't mean you have to order it. Allow your space to gradually empty, until at last the clutter has been replaced by an austere, minimalist arrangment of gleaming white shelves … and a Zen-like calm will follow. You’ll also be free to stand around in the back of the shop, gossiping with your co-workers. Trust me: it works.

4. Have some good stuff, but spread it over a wide area.
Once again, this technique was pioneered by the old Soviet "Universami" (equivalent of the supermarket, but differing in some crucial ways). In the typical Universam, many counters were positioned around the walls of a large hall, each counter attended by a separate cashier. To purchase, say, milk, bread, juice and ice cream, you had to go to four separate counters and deal with four separate cashiers.

Many of these establishments survive, and they provide excellent templates of successful retailing. The necessity of conducting more transactions means that more things can go wrong. One of the clerks you need might be on their break, for example. (Staring at other nearby staff will not get them to come to your counter, and if you have the audacity to ask for their help, they'll plainly tell you that it isn't their job to sell you the item you want.) Or one of them might have no change (see point five). Or ALL of them might have no change. Or you might find yourself faced with a clerk who pretends that your pronunciation is impossible to understand. If you attempt to solve this problem by pointing at the product you want, the clerks will suddenly develop a strange kind of autism which prevents them from understanding that they're supposed to look in the direction you're pointing. Instead, they'll just stare at your finger, as though you're holding it up for them to inspect - and looking like they may die of boredom at any moment. So altogether, the Universam constitutes a shining model of success and inspiration to all of us.

5. Have no change.
This can be an extremely effective way to avoid parting with your goods – which is undoubtedly why it’s a favoured technique in outlying areas like Kazakhstan. All that's required is to open your shop in the morning with no 'float' in the cash register. This makes it impossible to give change to early-morning customers, so you can simply shrug your shoulders and watch in silent satisfaction as they walk away empty-handed. One caution, though: as the day wears on, you'll inevitably encounter some customers who have the exact money, so it's important to regularly empty your cash register - otherwise, by late afternoon you may find yourself in the embarrassing position of being able to give the right change to almost anyone.

6. Don't price the things you want to keep.
This technique has been used with great success by newer players in the retail market, like the "Rakhmet" supermarket chain. Its only disadvantage is that it allows the customers to put their greasy hands all over your stock, which you definitely don't want them to do. However, you then have the satisfaction of taking it back from them.

Here's how it works: the loathsome shopper walks around your supermarket, filling their basket with goods in the mistaken belief that they'll be able to take all of these things home with them when they leave. When the fool arrives at your counter, pass some of their chosen products over the point-of-sale scanning machine, but simply take others and put them under your desk. When the customer asks why they can't have the products you're taking away from them, just say "They haven't been priced yet". No further explanation is necessary - the customer knows, after all, that he or she is always wrong.

7. Consider all people except your co-workers to be figments of their own imaginations.

This is another classic technique that never goes out of style. You can even throw in some basic elements of mind control: confuse the customer by greeting them as though they were a real, existing person, but then switch off your organs of perception so that your target feels as if they've suddenly turned invisible, or perhaps become very tiny and disappeared from view. It's a lot of fun - though not for them, obviously.

8. Erect obstacles.
This technique is favoured by small shop owners, because it gives them a chance to display some of their own creativity and inventiveness. Here's an exchange between a customer and a small shop-owner in Moscow that demonstrates the principle.

CUSTOMER: "Can I try on these sunglasses?"
OWNER: "Are you going to buy them?"
CUSTOMER: "I don't know yet."
OWNER: "Well, you can't try them on unless you're going to buy them.
CUSTOMER: "WHAT?
OWNER: "If you're going to buy the glasses, you can try them on."
CUSTOMER: "How can I know whether they suit me?"
OWNER: shrug.
CUSTOMER: "This is ridiculous!"

The above case was a complete success for the shop-owner: her would-be customer left feeling utterly confused and frustrated, and the owner got to keep her stock. All thanks to a little creative flair, which allowed the shopkeeper to erect an insurmountable obstacle between the shopper and the pair of sunglasses she wanted.

9. When in doubt ... close.
It pays to remember that it's your shop, and you can close it any time you want to. For maximum effect, avoid putting a sign on your door to tell people when you close each day, then sticking to the hours written on the sign. It's much better if you change your opening and closing hours every day, so as to remain unpredictable, enigmatic and elusive. Better still if you do have a sign, but one which reflects reality about as accurately as Fox News.

Follow any or all of these suggestions, and you're sure to see those horrible turnover figures decline in no time. Good luck, retailers ... you've worked hard to get all of that lovely stock onto your shelves, and we think you deserve to keep it there. "Ypa!"

(*Sort of the former-USSR equivalent of American diners.)

(**The Uzbek national dish: rice with carrots, lamb, spices and sometimes raisins. In Uzbekistan it’s widely considered to be an aphrodisiac, so of course if you’ve just made yourself a nice batch of plov, the last thing you want is to sell it!)