How sales tactics have reached a whole new level

Every person has the power to succeed in doing many things, some may be more difficult to achieve, others, instead, come as easy as to breathe. Or in my case, as easy as falling for possible sales tactics. How to forget my inability to resist anything in a supermarket that says 2 for $3; though the story I'm about to tell you revolves around more meaningful things, items that defines who we deeply and truly are. 

In a word: clothes.

Picture this scene, it's winter and at six in the evening it looks like midnight, if it wasn't for the hundreds of people crowding the streets looking for Pokemons. I am usually one of them, but my dignity has a limit, and having to re-charge my phone battery three times in a day is that limit. So I decide to pocket my phone instead of two dimensional creatures, and go shopping while waiting for the boyfriend to join me and get dinner together. Ever since I went to England the first time I have a love/hate relationship with a certain brand that sells clothes, let's call it Top Blop.

So, I am in Top Blop browsing around to see if I loved or hated this season's style. Probably hated, since it took me a good minute to figure out if a cardigan was defective or if it was actually ripped, when I see a backpack. Not just any backpack. In fact, it has everything I wish for in a bag: several zippers, pockets, adjustable straps, not too big, not too small, and, most importantly, it looks like a gothic mermaid tail. Which is my latest obsession. So I take it off the shelf with the intention to think about it while checking out the shoes section. I want to try on a pair, so I place my work bag and the new backpack next to me on the chair. A shop assistant walks past to check if I needed any help, then she looks at the bags. 

"That's a really cool bag! Where did you get it?" she says. I look at her a bit puzzled, not knowing if she meant my own bag which, by the way, is equally awesome, or the backpack I picked earlier. "Do you mean this? I just got it over there." "Omg it's ours? It must be the new collection! I am so using my employee discount to buy it too!". Needless to say that was it for me, the shop assistant sold me that overpriced shiny backpack in a matter of seconds and before I knew it I was walking to the cashier.

I am still trying to figure out how wouldn't a shop assistant know about the items sold in the store where she works, or if it was some new technique to make me feel cool and welcome to buy. Is this real life or is it all sales tactics? 


Image: via