At malls across the country, shoppers are being besieged by a determined crop of salespeople: young Israelis who man mobile carts and have a no-holds-barred selling style.
Amid the grimmest holiday season in years, these workers are approaching passing mall shoppers or calling out from their stations, pitching body lotions, irons, toys and knickknacks. They demonstrate their wares by flying remote-control helicopters, steaming shirts and applying makeup. Instead of charging American-style fixed prices, they harness the culture of the bazaar and often quote numbers based on what they think a customer will be willing to pay.
American ScofflawWe have had these annoying and often obnoxious people harassing us at the local malls for quite some time. We do not buy their products as despite the claims about Dead Sea natural materials the ingredients list show them to be loaded with chemicals my wife is sensitive to, and even when we explain that they still try to push the products on us.
However ...
Yesterday my wife and I braved the local mall for a last second holiday gift and noticed that the Israeli kiosks were all gone! Not just shut down, the actual kiosks themselves have been removed!
Maybe a lot of customers complained that the constant harassing sales techniques made shopping far less enjoyable, or maybe immigration rounded up the ones operating without work visas, but the good news is that the pushy ones have been banned, at least for the time being.
No comments:
Post a Comment