A tale of two sales

Last year my wife and I had the holiday of a lifetime in India. It was a wonderful experience with fantastic monuments, history and culture, great food and the warm and friendly people.

We came back with lots of stuff we hadn't really intended to buy due in no small measure to the local merchants' talent for selling.

The format usually went something like this. We would have a morning's sightseeing with a local guide. On the way home he would invite us to drop in at a local merchant - jeweller, potter, fabric trader etc. Let's use the jewellers as an example but the experience was similar, whatever the trade, 'Would you like to visit a local jewellers? The owners are very nice and they have a workshop on the premises which they will be happy to show you'. 'Why not?, we thought. There was no 'hard sell', we were free to say no but we usually opted to have a look around. We were greeted by the owner and several others at the entrance and warmly welcomed. Masala tea was offered and we were invited to look around the workshop. We had a personal tour and were shown the journey from raw gem stones, through cutting to designing and manufacture of the jewellery. Nothing was too much trouble. Lo and behold at the end of the tour we ended up in the jewellery shop. More tea was brought in and we were asked about our holiday so far. 'Would we like to see some jewellery?' No one asked us to buy anything but somehow we just did. Not things we needed or had planned to buy but presents and mementos from an enjoyable trip.

Let's contrast this with a trip to a carpet shop at home this weekend. We are in the process of redecorating our house. My wife has thought very carefully about the decor, we just needed the carpets and wanted advice on what to buy. We were ready to be sold to. We had a budget (well sort of) and a deadline. A couple of sales people were sitting down as we entered. We were welcomed and shown a few samples and basically left to potter around and well...leave. We had lots more questions, we wanted some ideas, some input, to let us know what was possible. A cup of tea and a chat would have been nice.

Ok so it's a different situation but I think illustrates a point. In India we had not intended to buy but were shown the possibilities and buying was made easy. So we bought. In the carpet shop we were ready to spend. We had the money ready and wanted help. The kind of help we wanted wasn't forthcoming so we didn't buy.

Off to a new carpet shop today so will see how that one goes...

www.base52.co.uk