Sales Techniques

I've decided that the sales strategy in department stores in Japan is ignore, ignore, IGNORE!

After much deliberation, I decided to finally get over my cheapskate tendencies and buy a pair of nice boots. It's winter, after all, and I keep seeing really nice looking boots on other people, and there's no reason they can't be on me!

Since I had some time to kill before a Japanese lesson, I decided to go into the Seibu department store in Ikebukuro to find some boots. I was looking for a very specific kind of boot. I didn't want the typical girlie boots, i.e., pointy toe with a very high heel and a chunk of asymmetrical fur sticking out somewhere. I wanted a pair of boots that looked a little like biker boots. You know the kind: clunky heel with a strap that goes across the ankle.

The department stores in Japan are massive places that are very different from those in the U.S. They're actually more like malls than department stores because most of them have at least one floor full of different shops that are only separated by a rack of clothes. I wandered around this area with my eyes towards the ground looking for the kind of boots that I wanted and failing miserably. Every shop had boots, but they were all ugly, pointy and furry.

When I found my way into the shoe section of the actual department store, it was packed with all kinds of housewives and their babies. One stroller had a very small child in it who had two magnifying glasses attached to an elastic band on its head. Because I was trying to walk fast, I had only gotten a glimpse of this poor child and all I could see were two massive eyes. I had to circle back around to get a better look because surely no one would strap magnifying glasses to their child's head... Surely. But no. That's exactly what had been done.

I finally found a pair of boots that looked pretty damn close to what I wanted. I picked them up and started looking for an employee to help me. There were employees everywhere just a second before, but now they had all disappeared. Then, suddenly, one came out of the woodwork and ran by me at top speed. There was no way I could stop that one! Then another one darted out from the other direction, again moving too quickly to catch. I saw a few of them just standing around and tried to get their attention, but I think they could sense it because they all turned and went in different directions. There were housewives all over and they were being helped, but I couldn't figure out how they had cornered an employee and got any kind of assistance. There had to be some kind of trick to it, something that you would just know if you were the type to frequent these places.

Finally one of the employees made the mistake of looking at me and I jumped at my chance. I raised my eyebrows and the boot in my hand and said, "Sumimasen!" I could almost hear the man saying, "Oh, fuck!" to himself as he reluctantly walked over to me. A broken English/Japanese conversation followed and I managed to take up 10 minutes of the poor man's time. In the end I thanked him, gave him back the boot, and tried to tell him that I'd be back in two days to buy a pair. Of course he couldn't understand me at all...