Around Town

    Now that the dust has settled from Halloween and I’ve had a chance to collect my thoughts, it’s time to write about our visit from WGN Morning News and Ana Belaval.
   I got a call On October 5 from a producer at Channel Nine asking if we’d like to be on their Around Town segment the following Tuesday. They would send a crew to the store and broadcast live in the seven and eight o’clock hours. I told them they didn’t have to ask me twice.
   This was our third attempt with WGN. The first was April Fool’s Day 1997 when they asked me the day before to come to the studio with some suitable tricks and jokes for the day. There was only one problem. Fox was coming to do a live remote for their Fox Thing In The Morning show with Bob Sirrott and there was no way I’d get up to the north side in time. I told them I’d do it if they landed their news chopper in the parking lot and flew me up there and back. They declined. The next time was in March of 2003 but we got preempted by the invasion of Iraq. We hoped nothing would keep the third time from being the charm.
   On Sunday, Judy and I went in to straighten everything and make it look like we had a lot of stuff. We did have a lot of stuff but it needed to be better organized. I cleaned the T-shirt printing area like it was brand new. Judy filled the holes in the costume area and filled or at least faced every spot on the shelves. The place looked great when we left. We hoped Monday’s customers wouldn’t mess it up too much.

   Monday was Columbus Day, the unofficial kickoff to the Halloween season when we start staying open til 8 p.m. every weekday. It was busy but the place still looked good by closing time so we headed home to hit the rack early.
   The alarm went off Tuesday at 5 a.m. and I was on the road by 5:40 after a bite of breakfast and doing the best I could to look good for the camera. On the way I passed an open field where the setting moon cast an unearthly glow to the miasma hugging the ground. That alone was worth getting up for. I pulled into the parking lot at 5:58 and the WGN truck one minute later. The camera operator showed up twenty minutes later, and Ana Belaval herself fifteen minutes after that.

The WGN news truck in our parking lot.

   Anyone who’s seen Ana on the air knows she’s a real high-energy ball of fire. She doesn’t stop while the camera’s off either. We had four segments each hour consisting of long and short teases and a three-minute interview. Between each segment she was looking for things to show the viewers, asking questions, and giving directions to all involved. She didn’t stop for the entire two hours. She especially had a blast with my children and grandchildren who were there to model costumes, since Halloween was the main focus of the day.
   Her two favorite items where the electronic fart machine and a pair of boxer shorts with a fake rubber butt on the back. She loved shaking that thing for the camera and we loved watching her do it. They really liked it back at the studio, too.

    All too soon it was over. The crew went on to their next assignment and Ana headed back to the station to prepare for the next day’s Around Town.
   Did it help us? Hard to tell. In the short term, several people came in to let us that they were in the store because they never heard of us until they saw us on Channel 9. One lady drove all the way from Niles because she saw a T-shirt design she liked on the wall behind me. I hope they turn into repeat customers.
   After everyone left, we had an hour until it was time to open for business so we headed out for a well-deserved breakfast. The waitress in the diner down the street recognized us and said we looked good on TV. We’d made the big time after all.
   When we got back to the store we noticed that Ana had left her jacket. I sent it back to her at the station with the note: “Ana, Tuesday was a lot of fun, but you have to stop leaving your stuff at my place.”  I hope that didn’t get her in trouble.
          

Mysterious Ways

   I had a job come in recently that I just dreaded doing. There was something about it that made me want to put it aside until everything else was done and I could give it my undivided attention. Even that wasn’t enough.
   It entailed printing on a piece of white cotton material 72 inches by 42 inches. That’s way too big to fit in our printing machine. Even if I could fit it in there, lining up the letters would be a nightmare. I’d have to do it by hand; all 42 4-inch red letters, 2 6-inch blue numbers, 14 2-inch black letters. An 11-inch-tall logo had to be transferred on, too. The letters would have to be taped together in segments and pressed in our T-shirt machine one segment at a time.
  It’s pretty obvious where this is going. The number was supposed to be 49 but for some reason I had the number 42 in my head. I even put that number on a template I set up on the computer to help me with layout. That was my jersey number when I played intramural basketball back in college but I have no idea why it came to me now. It was too late when I realized my mistake. The wrong number was permanently emblazoned on 21 square feet of cloth with no way to remove it.
   With trepidation I called my customer. If she was upset, she didn’t show it as we tried to come up with solutions. I offered one that required her to return to the fabric store and purchase a piece of blue material the same color as the number. Since this was going to be part of a football fan's blanket, I suggested she cut the blue fabric into the shape of a football and I could put a white number 49 on it. She could then sew it over my mistake. She loved the idea. I carefully finished the rest of the lettering and waited for her to come in with the new material.
   Still, that number 42 persisted as I tried to iron it on yet again. Good thing she was there to correct me. It turned out being a good thing I’d made the original error, too. When she went back to the fabric store, she found the white material on sale at a substantial discount. With her original receipt in hand she was able to cover the cost of the blue material and walk out with a cash refund.
   The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways.
   A few weeks later another customer came in who’s son also plays on the same team. She’d seen the finished blanket at a game that Friday night and wanted to know if I’d make one for her.
   I told her absolutely not.
  
  

Show Me The Money!

   Life on the front lines of retail is usually all about dealing with customers.    

   On the other side of the coin, we merchants also have to deal with suppliers who assault us from the rear with missed deadlines, incorrect shipments, false promises, and other ineptitude for which we have to answer to the customer.

   One of our suppliers, a humongous conglomerate, whose name I will not mention for fear of swift retribution, has hit us with a new angle. In addition to supplying business like ours they own a nationwide chain of 700 stores whose name I also will not mention but whose last name is akin to Metropolis and whose first name is something to do with Celebration. So you get the idea that this is a pretty big outfit.

   My wife always mispronounces their name and it sound like some kind of scam. Lately I’ve come to believe she’s right. They require us to prepay our orders by credit card. That’s no problem but what they do with the credit card is. Say we order $500 worth of merchandise. If they’re out of stock on half of it, they still charge $500 plus shipping to our card and hold the balance until our next order. No big deal, right? Well, sometimes we don’t reorder for a couple of months and we sure could use that extra $250. Plus, if they do this to a thousand businesses, that’s $250,000 of our money this mega supplier is collecting interest on.

   I have recently started a campaign against this policy and it seems to have had the desired effect.

   There appears to be only one person there to answer the phone. She’s a very nice lady who must have drawn the short straw and has to deal with every phone call, whether it’s an order, question, or complaint. She must have mixed emotions when she sees us on the caller ID. When my wife, Judy, calls, it’s to place an order. Judy’s always very pleasant and our phone lady is relieved beyond all telling to hear from her. She’s told my wife that she’d much rather deal with her than me. Maybe that’s because I’m not quite as pleasant when I call. A typical call might go like this:

“This is Jim at Riley’s Trick Shop. Where’s my money?”

“You know we’re holding it til you order it again.”

“Yeah, well I’m not gonna order any time soon, if ever. I want it now.”

“We’re good for it. We’ll credit it to your next order.”

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. I want MY money back NOW.”

“I’ll see what I can do about getting it credited back to your card.”

“No! I want you to mail me a check. And I want it now.”  

   This forces another drone at the company to write a check, put it in an envelope, stamp it, and get it in the mail. The check usually shows up in a few days because they don’t want to deal with me again. They know I won’t be so pleasant the next time. If every other merchant is making these demands, it adds up to a lot of extra work and expense for our supplier. That puts a dent in the bottom line, which gets the attention of the bean counters, and eventually works its way up to the honchos in the ivory tower.

   They appear to have reconsidered. With great fanfare they recently announced that they are changing their policy and charging us only for merchandise shipped. Woo-hoo!! They’re giving us our money back! How magnanimous. And for that they probably expect to be nominated for some kind of supplier of the year award.

   Don’t get your party hats out just yet.

Support Small Business

Last week Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote a column about the demise of Borders Books. He said that whenever a popular store closes people will say something like: "I love that place, I used to go there all the time." The operative word, of course, is "used" . That really struck a chord with me so I sent him an email which he printed in today's paper. I love his response.

Jim Riley: “Your column [about once-popular establishments going out of business] really hit home for me. As a small retailer I hear it every day. ‘I used to come to your place years ago, or, ‘My parents used to bring me here.’ We’ve been here the whole time. Where have you been?

“Established in 1937, our store has survived a world war, urban upheaval, several recessions, and the Ford and Carter administrations. Never has it been as bad as it is now. All I want to say is: Support small business before Wal-Mart takes over everything". 

Thanks,

Jim Riley

Riley’s Trick Shop

Man, I used to love visiting Riley’s Trick Shop as a kid. It was literally a magical trip.

Ah, geez. I just did it, didn’t I?

All right, everybody who had a rush of nostalgia upon reading the words “Riley’s Trick Shop”: Please make plans to stop in there sometime in the next week.

Shopping Help

This is the second post in Riley’s blog, Adventures in Retail. If we’re going to offend anyone, it’s best to start right now.

It’s time for a refresher course in shopping etiquette from one who’s been in retail for over 40 years.  Despite any bad shopping experiences you may have had, please keep in mind that most of the people behind the counters are not social misfits who couldn’t get a “real” job. They shouldn’t be treated that way.  A lot of us are teachers, students, housewives, and other part-timers trying to earn an extra buck in difficult times. The rest of us are full-time employees and shop owners here to help you find exactly what you want. Our livelihoods depend on it. So here are some things to think about before you step into any store. These examples come from actual experiences in our store but apply to any type of retail establishment from the corner greasy spoon to the highest-end boutique. Yeah, the kind that you and I will never be caught dead in.

If we don’t have exactly what you’re looking for; crying, yelling, and stamping your feet will not make it magically appear.  We probably don’t have “anything like it” either.  If we did we’d have suggested it. We would have told you if more were on the way.  And, no, we don’t know who else has it; we have enough trouble keeping up with our own inventory. If we send you to another store, it just to get you to leave. It’s the oldest retail trick in the book, not that we at Riley's would ever resort to such an underhanded measure.

Coming into a store at two minutes til closing “just to look around” will not get you any kind of best customer award.  If you know what you want, we’ll go out of our way to get it for you as quickly as possible because we have lives outside of the store and we’re tired after being on our feet all day.  We do not want to stand around while you amble through the aisles for half an hour after last call then leave empty-handed without acknowledging that we’ve held the place open for you.  The fact that we don’t live somewhere behind the counter comes as a shock to some shoppers.

Please pull the cell phone away from your ear when in the store.  It’s very difficult to conduct business with someone who’s carrying on an apparently one-sided conversation while communicating with us in some kind of undecipherable sign language.  If you must use the phone while in the store, please keep your conversation on the subject at hand:  sizes, colors, cost, etc.  We do not need to stand idly by while you discuss your Aunt Tilly’s latest medical crisis with your sister.  Another thing to keep in mind is that it’s an electronic device, not a hollow tube. There is no need to shout so that everybody in the building knows your business.  And please, please don’t call other stores to compare prices while we wait, it’s just rude.

Please put your garbage in a container outside the store or keep it in your car until you get home. Do not come in a business and expect us to dispose of your half-eaten chalupa or greasy bag of fries.

Finally, a word on bringing children shopping if you plan to ignore them while they're in the store: DON’T, unless you're going to keep an eye on them at all times

Most of the kids that come in are on their best behavior, with or without their parents. They're polite and don't handle everything they see. Others have no respect for other people’s property and their parents don’t do anything to encourage that respect. They let their kids treat a store as a playground, leaving a trail of merchandise on the floor in their wake. You are responsible for any damage caused your children; the store is not responsible if they get hurt doing something they’re not supposed to.  If you have no option other than to bring your kids with you, please don't ignore them. When they demand your attention, don’t ignore them.  It’s very difficult to conduct a transaction when someone’s child is screaming. “Mommymommymommymommy…”  If they say, “Hey, look at me” you probably should because it’s a good bet they’re doing something they shouldn’t.  If all else fails and your child becomes completely uncontrollable, remember that most stores are not No Spanking Zones. There should be a helpful sales associate or good Samaritan customer nearby to help hold your little darling down while you remind him of the proper way to behave.

These helpful hints will make your shopping experience more enjoyable for both of us. The retail workers of America thank you.

Opening Shot

Welcome to Adventures in Retail, the first official blog from Riley’s Trick Shop.

What we’ll attempt to do here is keep you up-to-date with what’s happening here at Riley’s. We’ll let you know about new products and services as they become available. You’ll find links to videos and websites of interest to our customers.

We’ll also bring you stories of dealing with the public. As anyone who’s worked on the front lines can tell you, every time you pick up the phone or open your front door can be an adventure. Of course, names and other revealing information will be changed to protect the innocent–mainly us.

If you have an interesting retail story from behind the counter please feel free to send it to jim@rileystrickshop.com. We want to hear from anyone who’s had to deal with a customer who’s been a challenge, a delight, or who just ruined your day. Do not send us your stories of dealing with a bad clerk. Start your own blog for that.

Please check back often. This is a novelty business. Novelty comes from the Latin word for new. There is always something new here at Riley’s Trick Shop.