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Author Topic: How Retail Sales Became "Unskilled" Work  (Read 376 times)

rcjordan

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How Retail Sales Became "Unskilled" Work
« on: October 07, 2021, 03:26:45 PM »
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Brad

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Re: How Retail Sales Became "Unskilled" Work
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2021, 06:50:41 PM »
I talked to a woman who was a retail sales clerk in a department store in the 1930's during the Great Depression.  It was a trained position just like the article said, and clerks were expected to know their department.

While being a sales clerk was never a high paying job, you could support yourself modestly on the pay and people used to retire from those jobs after 30 years.
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ergophobe

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Re: How Retail Sales Became "Unskilled" Work
« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2021, 09:34:47 PM »
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In the 1940s, Ikeler writes, many sales clerks received extensive training to provide personalized service, sometimes in formal schools such as the New York University School of Retailing.


When I lived in Switzerland in the early 1990s, it struck me that a lot of people regarded retail as a specialty and people tended to really know their stuff (often for many retail fields there were certifications).

For outdoor gear, there is such a huge difference between

1. a specialty outdoor gear store
2. an REI
3. A general sporting good store.


We have become much more of a self-service economy, off-loading tasks to consumers in order to bring prices down. Self-serve gas. ATMs. Retail people who often don't know anything about what they're selling, leaving it to you to do the research.
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Brad

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Re: How Retail Sales Became "Unskilled" Work
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2021, 10:55:16 AM »
When I lived in the UK I found the sales clerks were very knowledgeable.  I remember being told about the different virtues of pure silk neckties, silk and wool blend (wears like iron) and silk plus synthetic.  I also bought a pair of dress walking shoes which turned out to be the best I ever wore, and that clerk was very knowledgeable on advising about soles.

This is also why I like my local Ace Hardware store.  By and large they have older sales clerks who are skilled at different kinds of household repairs and sometimes you can just describe the problem to them and pretty soon you have a brain trust of 3 clerks discussing solutions to fix the problem.  You don't get that at a big box store.   Also the paint guy really knows his stuff and has never lead me wrong.
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