Random reminder

Press, 6 May 1981, Page 33

Random reminder

SOFT SELL

It is no surprise that the Kiwi (with his home grown ingenuity) is good at creating exports. Within the bounds of his homeland, he has been among the world’s best businessman, and the Kiwi sell is irresistible. Most people coming to New Zealand will meet it in our shops — and then some. Wandering through a large city department store, stepping in time to the jingle of cash registers, one could not help but hear the faint metallic whisper as countless Americans, British. Ger- / ’ man, Italian, Japanese and Australian (visitors wrote out endless cheques. Most of this is voluntary and one rarely comes across a South African diamond mine owner or a New York real-estate speculator being forcibly held down on a counter, while a determined store manager rifles his pockets. This hard sell, of course, is to be . deplored — it could give the country a bad name, vet there are circumstances

in which it is justified. If you happen to be, as it were, a South African diamond mine owner or a New York real-estate speculator, with nothing more io do (while stranded by our national airline strike) than wander through our department store for an hour or more without buying anything. Patience and goodwill have their limits. In their more relaxed moments, of course, our local store managers lament . that the ideal stage has not yet been set. I This will come when a reasonable) quota of American millionaires, Arabian . sheikhs, German industrialists, along ’ with their Japanese competitors and other members of the world’s wealthy set, are compelled to attend with the staff at 8.30 a.m. each morning to put in a solid eight hours buying. If — as one store manager (in genuine Kiwi logic) put it, — the staff must put in a full day, why shouldn't the customer do the same?