Rapha, nice but a bit pricey?

All shop staff in all shops should be nice to customers without feeling like they are sacrificing their dignity. It's just people talking to other people. There are some pretty horrendous jobs out there, retail isn't one of them.

My favourite quip from a director I know is "Even clowns and prostitutes always smile". Not one I share with my staff, but puts things in perspective in a blackly humorous way.

Gis a job!

Apathetic staff nearly always lack proper training.

It's been a bugbear of mine that retail companies either employ sales staff who are efficient or good looking.

It isn't difficult to engage sales teams and encourage better service from them, but it take a little time to coax their abilities out.

^ Agreed.

^^ Hired!

Don't want to derail this thread too much, but paying them a decent wage would give a much greater benefit than training. Minimum/low wage retail sucks.

Canyon/SRAM kit out for women. super fuckin' boss

Do you know how much they get paid?

Sorry if it wasn't clear, I wasn't commenting on Rapha staff in particular, it was a reply to the comment from @b&d about retail staff in general.

It's all about negotiation - negotiate better, get a better deal or move on.

It's worked for many generations of salespeople.

Whoop! Can I work at BM though?

It isn't difficult to engage sales teams and encourage better service from them, but it take a little time to coax their abilities out.

I've found it usually depends on how the staff are 'into' the product/culture/brand their trying to sell. Rapha seem to do really well with this - all of the staff I've dealt with have been friendly and helpful and seem to care about the product, company and customer.

Salespeople maybe but not retail assistants. There it's all 'your hourly wage is £X, end of chat'. Even further up in large organisations there's no real negotiation unless you get unions in.

I've spent my entire career in and around retailing.

There are always going to be people who treat retail as a stepping stone whilst they decide what they really wanted to do. These are the people who need to be weeded out earlier in the process in order to avoid customers having to encounter disenfranchised youths.

Even with the hourly wage organisations there's nearly always some room for negotiations, whether it's for a course you're attending or a specific day off.

^^ Not true in my experience, there is always room to discuss pay.

^ Indeed there are many people using retail as a stepping stone, but placing as much value and time into them as you would people you perceive as longer term investments can make the difference between them working with you for 1 year or 3. Many of these transient people have been some of my best, and the change of staff can bring fresh ideas and enthusiasm. Likewise, 'career-retailers' can be some of the most challenging with little reward.

To bring this chat back to Rapha, I often use Rapha as a good example of marketing and quality when discussing how my company can improve.
What a f^%$ing derail...
Bibs anyone?

Yes. Assos. The original.

I bought some of the 'Kilver' edition bibs at the weekend which i am led to believe are the pro team with different logos. Comfy and cheaper at £100 than my Mavic ones purchased a year or so ago. So pretty happy with them.

I'm late to the Rapha game so only just discovered the DATA pattern stuff, but came away with a long sleeve in green and short in black. Oh and a snuck a long sleeved club in too. Overall happy and the archive stuff is competitively priced in my eyes.

my manager in my new job is American.

After 5 days I'm pretty sure she hates me already, and sadly, the feeling is mutual-if not for her insistence on wearing reaction lenses (she's late 20's/early 30's-not 75) for her weirdly laborious formulaic social mores which frankly are at total odds with UK service culture and I refuse to entertain for the money I'm being given. Also, if you laugh after absolutely everything you say regardless of whether it's funny or not you come across as a fucking imbecile, and if you also say "holy crap" that just compounds the general level of cretinousness that you embody in the social stratosphere.

In fairness, for her dealing with someone who doesn't return the programmed prompts she's expecting out of these exchanges it's probably like dealing with someone with Autism, but 'whatever' it's not for me to fit in with her cultural expectations and she should just get busy with being less enthusiastic, motivated, and chipper and accept the fact that her staff could not give a singular joule of fuck towards making our mutual employer more money if it means having to debase ourselves over and above basic politeness.

Anyway TL;DR: My job is shit, and I'm missing the sample sale because of a wedding.

I think the flipside is the quality of management and the job that's expected for the pay.

two of the cafe staff didn't appear at the weekend and people from retail get dragged over: it's not the job they applied for or should be expected to do. Pay the cafe staff (who get humped all weekend) more and give them some kind of bonus and they might turn up. Simply using retail staff as your cover then fucks over their day and creates disenfranchised staff with the impression that anything goes and you can't refuse as you'll then get canned.

This is simple greed/poor management as far as I'm concerned...

Scheiß Sozi. Totally forgotten that you are my friend and could have gotten me all the Rapha at the sales. If at least it was a funeral.

In other news there is only one member of our family who got offered a job at Rapha. And he turned it down.

He is now in Dubai.

Ha!

Cretinousness is an excellent word

10/10 for American manager portrayal

I'm missing the sample sale because of a wedding.

At least it'll be an open bar