Woodland Creature

‘Can I Help You?’ Irks the Web-Savvy Customer

On a Friday morning last autumn, a reporter walked into a Gap store at the Grove, a shopping mall in Los Angeles. A young, bright-eyed woman in jeggings and a side ponytail bounded over with a warm greeting.

“How are you?” she asked. “Can I help you with anything?”

Over the next 15 minutes, four other similarly young, beaming and bejegginged women approached with the same question. The first two circled back and asked again how they could help.

Take it from someone who worked at the Gap for four years — we’re not trying to get you to buy stuff, we’re trying to make sure you don’t steal stuff. We were always told by management to greet people, especially in the front of the store, as a “loss prevention” (retail-speak for “making sure people don’t rip off the merchandise”) tactic. Once shoplifters are aware that store employees have seen them, they’ll usually slink away and go try to nab some free goods at another store. Plus, you can usually tell who’s going to attempt to rip you off, since they act super shady and refuse to meet your eyes when you talk to them.

Most shoplifters are not teenagers putting on a shirt under their clothes in the fitting room and walking out, these are professionals. They don’t play games — they’ll just dump entire stacks of clothing into giant bags and run off. Security tags are completely pointless because their oversized totes are lined with material that blocks the sensors. And then they go sell it all out of the back of a van in New York City, while your store has to explain to HQ why it just lost hundreds of dollars.