Smile ... you are at a sale

Ginnie Teo, ANN/The Straits Times

I can still remember the thrill of waiting in line behind 50 people outside the Esprit store in Orchard Road years ago.

For hours, I would stand patiently in the queue before the store opened, just to get into the hallowed grounds filled with Esprit goods marked down by 70 percent.

It didn't matter that with my meager secondary school allowance, all I could afford was a pair of socks.

The Esprit sale was a big event back in the 1980s, and it was a heady experience waiting for it.

Now, 20 years later, I feel differently about shopping in Singapore, having seen more of the world and witnessing shopping practices in other countries.

Today, I can come across a queue of women waiting to get into a Mango sale - and walk right past.

I can see an advertisement screaming 'Sale!' in the newspapers - and I turn the page.

Those invitations to closed-door sales that I get as a journalist? I give them away. Have I gone mad? Is this the start of a mid-life crisis? Am I no longer a shopaholic?

The fact of the matter is I'm beginning to find that - unlike in my innocent childhood - shopping in Singapore really isn't all that good.

Think about it: Rude service, salesgirls ignoring you, overpriced products, the same skirt found all over Orchard Road. Walk into a shop and you feel like you're intruding onto a shop assistant's personal space.

But customers are just as bad. They behave like royalty, always insisting that The Customer Is Always Right.

My feelings about shopping here struck home when I was in a small town called Sammamish, south-east of Seattle in the United States, last month.

By anyone's standard, Sammamish - population 34,000 - is no shopping haven. But it opened my eyes to a higher level of shopping.

Consider these two real-life scenarios.

A relative told me this story: A month ago, a nasi lemak store opened in Jalan Besar. On opening day, it gave out free packets of the fragrant coconut rice.

Long queues of customers formed. The next day, the offer was over, and the store was deserted.

At the same time in Sammamish, for two hours each day, a doughnut store called Krispy Kreme would give out free original- glazed doughnuts to anyone who walked through its doors.

There was no queue (unless you count my family of eight). Customers who strolled in were pleasantly surprised to get the freebies.

The giving out of free doughnuts - or nasi lemak - would never work in Singapore for a prolonged period of time.

Singaporeans would queue overnight, get their maids to stand in line, or worse, pay foreign workers to queue on their behalf.

The store would end up giving out so many doughnuts, they'll not have enough for the next day.

Singaporean shoppers are a greedy lot.

I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that almost all stores in the United States practice a well-established return policy.

Buy an item, and if you're not happy with it, you have up to 90 days to return it. You get your money back, no questions asked.

I'm sure American shoppers are no angels, too. But the fact that people there do abuse the system, such as returning a gown after prom night, has not stopped stores from continuing with their generous return policy.

Here, you're lucky to find a shop which will accept returns. And if you do, you have three days - or up to a week at most - to return your item.

Not that you can really blame the stores.

Three weeks ago, I interviewed shop assistants from furniture store Ikea, electronic retailer Courts, Tangs department store and Cold Storage supermarket.

All four stores have return policies, and the items that have been returned were simply shocking.

Juicers with carrot stains, half-eaten tins of cookies, used party dresses, wine glasses with lipstick stains on them.

Singaporean shoppers are a scary lot.

A return policy, or any consumer practice for that matter, only works if consumers and shops both play their part. You want good service? Try being polite yourself first.

The Dairy Farm Group, which owns Cold Storage supermarkets, got it right when it ran a courtesy campaign in 2002 to reward gracious and courteous customers.

Smile at the cashier, and the cashier will probably smile back.

Return policies can work here but customers have to be decent about it and return items only if they had genuinely made a mistake with their purchases.

And shops have to be more generous with their policies. Accept that there will be shameless consumers who have no qualms abusing the privilege of being able to return a product.

Be ready to write off the losses of getting back a dirty wine glass or a used juicer. But treat the customer nicely - and he will probably come back.

Singapore's consumer practices are stuck at an unsophisticated level because of us, the unsophisticated consumer.

We don't get to enjoy a generous return policy, great service or even free doughnuts every day simply because we will abuse these perks.

And because we abuse them, shops will never practice such customer-friendly schemes.

So, do me a favor the next time you go shopping. Smile at the cashier. Who knows, we consumers might just reap the rewards in time to come.

And, maybe, I'll enjoy shopping here again.